Tuesday, November 24, 2009

THE BODE GEORGE CONVICTION: TRIAL JUDGE TO SUFFER FOR IT?






The Federal Republic of Nigeria versus Chief Olabode George & Ors decided recently by an Ikeja High Court, Lagos presided over by Honourable Justice Olubunmi Oyewole, has become a cause celebre.

For some weeks, the case has been a focal point of discussion in the public domain, especially now so, that the learned judge not only convicted the accused persons, but equally firmly rejected their application for bail pending appeal.

A striking feature of the case is the special attention to Chief Olabode George, the first accused person, by the press and members of the public.
So special is thus attention that one may be forgiven to think that it was only one person (Olabode George) that was the prosecuted party. However there were four other persons, all otherwise respectable Nigerians who have at one time or the other, held high public office..
Nobody however talks about any of the other five accused, excepting perhaps as a foot-note or a way laconic after-thought.
These other five are Aminu Dabo, an architect, Captain O. Abidoye, Alhaji Abdullahi Aminu Tafida, Alhaji Zama Maidaribe and Mr. Sule Aliyu, an engineer.

Together with Olabode George, a retired Navy commodore and a past Governor of old Ondo state the six men were arraigned on a 68 count charge on conduct splitting, abuse of abuse and disobedience to lawful orders.
On judgement day (26 October 2009) Oyewole J. presiding, convicted the defendants on 35 counts of the charge.
The judgement to say the least caught the defendants and their counsel napping. All through the trial, the defence team seemed to shine like a million stars while the prosecution were shored off as yokels, whose moves were easily punctured by the agile defence.

Thus on judgment day, the defendants, having as it were waltzed through trial, expected to receive a discharge and acquittal.
Confident in that hope, the clear leader of the group, Olabode George, a big talking, swash-buckling political conquistador practitioner of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) extraction and who had brought colourful controversy to attend the trial in the form of scores of gainly dressed and uniformly attired (mostly female) supporters ostensibly present to give moral support to George and the gang, simply tripled his effort.


Thus on judgment day it was in their hundreds that the “Georgitas” turned up at the court-house. However it was all in vain as Justice Oyewole waded through a 110 page judgement to send the accused on an admission to the Maximum Security Prison, Kirikiri having found them guilty on about half of the charges against them.
The accused persons simply could not believe their ears when the judge broke the news of their admission into the special 'guest house of the government' at Kirikiri Lagos.

The most devastated convict understandably was Mr. Bode George. His natural optimist and gang-to proclivity, as well as strong belief in the competence of his decorated counsel had driven the thoughts of possible imprisonment far away from his mind.
Turning to his lead counsel in utter bewilderment indeed stupefaction he beseeched that worthy, Mr. Tunji Ayanlaja S.A.N of the “Apoti Aje” fame in those words.
“Chief, Tunji please do everything in your powers to see that I do not go to that place (Maximum Security Prison).
Ayanlaja being merely a lawyer and no magician knew that there was no legal resource in his vast arsenal to stop his client’s passage to prison, was left with no option than to tell the devastated politician, the stark truth.
And so to 'college,' George and the gang went. Willy-nilly.
As the gang clambered into the School bus, the shame, nay ignominy of it all (and which was just nascent) stung the mobilized supporters of George to cursing, weeping and issuance of threats against the trial judge.

In their new 'homes,' the MSP, the new inmates continued to be in shock, particularly Olabode George.
A gecko, who had become a head-boy in the new school of Bode George sent information through the usual intelligence channels to the Squib that on the second day in prison a visitor to the Tsunami Exponent of political take-over of Lagos state could not help soliloquizing, this with cheeks resting on a pelion.
“Ah, Oyewole, Oyewole, that boy? He was agreeing with us. When we said this, he agreed, when we said that, he agreed. Then at the last day, he looked us in the face and sent our leader here. Oyewole, Oyewole, Oyewole, that boy, we’ll see how he’ll get to that Court of Appeal which he wants to go.
We’ll see. He’ll get there only if it is a place where ghosts and not human beings preside as judges.”
To the supporters of Bode George, some who are clearly violent and rough, the trial judge had a golden opportunity of “redeeming” himself when application for bail pending appeal was brought on behalf of George and the other convicts in the case.
A lot of media hoopla attended this routine application amidst speculations that huge pressure had come upon the judge to relent and grant the application.

However the judge remained convinced that George and his co-horts should remain in school to squarely face their studies, and so firmly and promptly denied the prayers for bail, on 9th November 2009.
In many quarters of well meaning Nigerians, there are concerns for the safety and progress of the man who prescribed a spell in prison for a political big-wig like Olabode George. Said a commentator-

“Although before the Olabode George case, Justice Oyewole had already became famous. After all he was the one who sent the big time fraudster Chief Emmanule Nwude to prison and was also responsible for putting Reverend King behind bars, sentenced to death, among so many other cases.
But Olabode George is a different kettle of fish. George is, unlike Nwude or King a politician, a very big one for that matter, and in the ruling party.
Politicians are dangerous people to offend - they are well connected and are deep-rooted. Governments go, governments come, but they are always there.
Another observer said “my fear for the judge (Oyewole J) is that he may have been caught unwittingly in a political war between the PDP and the Action Congress (A.C).
Some P.D.P. people are saying his judgement was the dictate of Bola Tinubu the god-father of politics in Lagos state and who appointed Oyewole as judge in 2001. Tinubu is a well known political adversary of Bode George and so meanings are read into the judgement mosre so as Lagos State belongs politically to the Action Congress and not the P.D.P. You know our politicians being bad losers, are always looking for scape-goats to blame their woes on.”


As far as the Squib is concerned, judges handling special and sensitive assignments such as presiding over anti-corruption case and high electoral matters should have a strong security support round them. This, is not the case presently. A clean conscience and a patriotic are not enough shields where security is concerned. Remember General Muritala Mohammed?

Thursday, November 19, 2009

BODE GEORGE SUPPORTERS ALMOST KILL LAWYER IN COURT.


On Wednesday, 4th November 2009, the squib had an interview with Mr. Muftau Kajobola Olobi at the secretariat of NBA Ikeja Branch. Olobi is a young lawyer, having been called to the bar in 2006 and a member of the Ikeja bar (Tiger Branch).


The interview was prompted by the ugly experience Olobi suffered on Monday the 26th November 2009 at the premises of the first compound of the Ikeja High Court, in the hands of embittered supporters of Chief Olabode George, who alongside four other people was jailed Justice Olubunmi Oyewole of the Ikeja High Court for the offences of contract splitting and disobedience to lawful orders.
Below are excerpts from the interview.

HOW IT STARTED
I knew that day, judgement in the Olabode George case would be delivered by the trial judge, so I came to the court (Ikeja High Court) to know the outcome.
I came also to protest against the way supporters of Chief Olabode George had turned the court, any hearing date of the case to a place to dress in Aso-Ebi and make merry, in short a carnival-ground.
I thought that was not good enough in my opinion a descreation of the hallowed grounds of the court.
I mean a man was being tried for fraud and related offences and all he could was to organize and encourage people to troop to court in carnival fashion in the name of solidarity with him.

MY PROTEST
When I finally gained entrance into the court premises, I distributed a one page article entitled STOP THE UTTER DESCRATION, CONTEMPTOUS AND GRIM DEMYSTIFICATION OF THE HALLOWED CHAMBERS to newspaper correspondents and other media people. Upon going through the leaflet, the journalist decided to interview me on my protests and view points.
I did not grant the press interview in the midst of Bode George people. However they saw and heard me talking from a distance, because I was talking quite loudly and gesticulating as well to make my points.

THE CONFRONTATION
When I was addressing the press, nobody disturbed or challenged me, even though the Olabode George supporters saw me and some of them were pointing at me. After the press conference, I did not go away but waited for the outcome of the case.
When the verdict came, and it was against the accused, the supporters mood changed and tension rose immediately. I was dressed in the formal wears of the barrister when I spoke with the press-But I came with a change of dress. So I went to a place and changed into this other wears, just ordinary suits. I felt safer that way and was quietly making way towards the second gate, servicing the new court complex when two men approached me and demanded to know who I was. I knew trouble had come and I tried to bluff my way out. So I put up a bold face and asked them what manner of question that was and who, they too were? Then they asked me “Are you not the man who was speaking against Baba George?” I told them I didn’t know what they were talking about.
Then one of them shouted. He is the one jo”. Then they moved on me, two against one. Almost immediately thereafter about twenty of them rushed to the scene, shouting while beating kicking me. They were saying
“He is from Tinubu” (Mr. Nola Ahmed Tinubu immediate past Governor of Lagos State and Action Congress Chieftain). “He is Fashola’s lawyer!" At a point they resolved that the best way to deal with me was to carry me out of the court premises. So they tried to bodily lift me up but I managed to hold on to the fender of nearby car and cling to it-tenaciously. I was fighting for my life. I knew if I was carried out, it would only result in my death.
Some of my attackers were with pistols. I saw the guns. Suddenly Barrister Yinka Farounbi one of counsel to the defendants rushed into the rowdy scene. A police man, who I later knew to be the Divisional Police Officer also came.
These two men rescued me and saved my life. By then my coat, shirt and singlet had been torn. Blood was flowing from a cut on my head. My right eye is especially traumatised. Even now more than a week after the attack, I am not seeing well with the eyes of course during the attack those hoodlums took my phone away but the D.P.O retrieved it from them. But it was only my sim card I could retrieve from it-the phone had been smashed

AFTER THE ATTACK
I had to go to hospital to nurse the injuries I received. For several day after I could not see well. Of course I have no personal relationship with either Asiwaju Bola Tinubu or the Governor, Raji Fashola. I have not met them, only their pictures in newspaper and on television. The attack on me on Monday 26th October 2009 only revealed that there is no security of life and property there. Although the policemen were many that day, but they made no arrests, they were looking the other way. After rescuing me from the hoodlums, they refused to arrest them.
I am not deterred by the attack infact since that day I have been receiving threat calls, from theses Olabode George supporters, boasting that they will deal with me. They claim that I am being sponsored by Tinubu and the congress. They said Bode George is not the first and only thief in Nigeria and wondered why he is being singled out for punishment. These threat calls did not show the telephone numbers of the callers.
But I am not deterred by the threats since I know that my life is not on their hands. I will still come to the Ikeja High Court on Monday, to protest against the act of turning the court premises to a carnival ground.
As to what steps I will take on the attack on me we are considering a number of options including suing the government, the police and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). We may sue the government for failure to provide effective security on that day, the police, for failing to do their duty despite their presence and the P.D.P because my attackers are her members and Bode George’s supporters.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

BIG STRESS AS OLABODE GEORGE AND 4 OTHERS GO TO JAIL

The court house is second home to legal practitioners. It is understandable – it is where they as advocates, practice their profession daily and as honoured officers and priests at the temple of justice for that matter…

Little wonder it came as a rude shock to many Lagos lawyers on Monday 26th October 2009 when they arrived at the Ikeja High Court only to find the gates of the main compound (Compound A) locked against them and manned by armed policemen.

It was already a battle to get through to the gates of the court, courtesy of variegated traffic snarls in all directions and routes leading to the Ikeja High Court.

At the various entrances of the High Court, it was a situation of near bedlam as vehicles of all shapes and sizes were parked just about anywhere and anyhow, as the gates remained shut against people.

When the Squib got to the gates at about 8.55 am., more than forty people were jostling to gain entrance and it took the supreme persuasion for the legal practitioners amongst them to succeed. Most litigants and judiciary staffers were turned back.
It was a most curious situation as even some judges were turned back. At a point when the commotion at the gates was getting too much, the private security men who had the keys of the gates simply drifted away from the scene.

Of course, this only made the situation worse. By now the reason for the unusual development had become known – Honourable Justice Olubunmi Oyewole the trial judge in the case of I.D/71C/2008 Federal Republic of Nigeria versus Chief Olabode George and 4 others, would be delivering the judgment in the sensational case, that very morning and security operatives had taken over the court premises to forestall the possible breach of the peace. The Olabode George case became sensational because of the 1st accused person, a top notcher in the ruling party in Nigeria, and a flamboyant Lagos born politician who believes, it appears, in conquistador politics, practiced albeit in a quixotic fashion.

Olabode George as an accused person, brought colour and disquiet if not controversy to the case as deliberately organized political supporters, dressed in similar, gay, native apparels turned up in the court at every hearing session, in their scores. It was a move calculated to show that George was ‘a man of the people but the sight of several dozens of women in aso-ebi (uniform native dresses) just hanging around the trial court, anytime of the case, riled most observers.
Many people including the governor of the state Babatunde Raji Fashola S.A.N had complained about the spectacle of Olabode George’s “Supporters, turning the court into something of a jamboree or a circus show but the “show” did not stop.:

On D-day (26th October 2009) more “supporters” of Olabode George turned up for the case. They could not have numbered less than five hundred people. Rather surprisingly, despite the activities of the mobile policemen manning the gates, and who turned back many people with good reasons to be in the courts that morning, no less than three hundred of the said “aso-ebied” supporters of Olabode George gained entrance into the court premises.

In the court premises proper, only a few vehicles could be seen and except for the area of Justice Oyewole’s court, the rest of the court complex appeared unusually vacant and silent.

Apart from Justice Oyewole himself who was busy in his court wading through his 110 page judgment, only very few otherjudges, like Mojisola Dada J., Obadina J., Adefope Okojie J. sat in the Ikeja High Court, at least before 10.00 am.
A particular rumour gained ground that the “authorities” had ordered other judges not to sit at the normal hour of 9:am but at 12.30pm! Since it was such a rather curious information, most lawyers found it rather strange but were left in deeper confusion since there was no senior official of the judiciary to confirm or deny the news.

Of course, lawyers could be trusted to react to such a situation. Said one, “Ha, ha, what is this country turning into? Because of the judgment in one court, other courts will not work again?” Another said, “This is how we promote and glorify villains in this country. What is so special about the Bode George case that other courts that other courts must not sit? What of the numerous other cases? Are they now saying those other litigants are not important?”

Yet another counsel had this to say, “I find this directive, if indeed true, rather odd. This is not the first big case in this same Ikeja High Court and in all those instances, nobody stopped courts from working. The particular court handling a sensitive case is the only one, the security people secure. Not everybody is allowed in it or even around it.
Even if the security report indicates that there could be serious problems, then, the judgment should be delivered in the afternoon, say 2.00pm, when most other courts would have finished their business for the day.”

It was the view of yet another counsel that “I bet you that Olabode George will be jailed. It is so apparent that this will be so, otherwise why this unusual security arrangement?”

It was around 1.00pm that news came that judgment had been delivered in the Olabode George case and that the defendants were to spend two years in prison, although they were discharged and acquitted on some other counts. Immediately the judgement ended, the situation turned ugly. Highly disappointed at the judgement, supporters of Olabode George turned aggressive as they pranced about the court premises cursing the judge and “enemies” of their idol. Some of them were seen openly brandishing guns and other weapons, threatening to attack any person who dared take photographs of Olabode George, climbing into the “School Bus” (the maria) that would take him and his co-convicts to the School of Further Adult Education at the Maximum campus, Kirikiri Lagos (maximum security prison).

At this point a group of these supporters pounced on one legal practitioner, M.K.O. Olobi Esq., and beat him up, thoroughly. In previous sessions, Olobi was known for protesting against the turning up of Olabode George’s supporters in court in uniform dresses.

Another person, a journalist too was reportedly assaulted. In spite of all these incidents, the police made no arrests, in fact turned a blind eye, becoming dumb, deaf and blind, in spite of being in large numbers and sufficiently armed.

Said a judiciary staff who witnessed the departure of Olabode George and his case mates from the court after being sentenced, “it was unbelievable that the police could behave the way they did. Can you imagine those people shouting threats at us, in the court premises saying they would kill and and injure us if “anybody takes any picture of baba,” in the very presence of the police and the police just turned away?”

As the trial court has fixed November 9 2009 for the hearing of bail pending appeal application of the convicted men, there are concerns that 26 October 2009 could repeat itself. This, except, the judiciary and the police do things differently in terms of security arrangement.

Monday, November 2, 2009

'HURRICANE AKANDE' HITS LAGOS MAGISTRATES


Office of the Hon. Chief Judge
High Court of Lagos State,
Lagos
2nd October 2009
Ref. No. CJL/JUD/006/VOL.VII/13
TO:
All Magistrates
Lagos State Judiciary
CIRCULAR
POSTING SCHEDULE OF MAGISTRATES FOR THE YEAR 2009/10
1. The following postings are hereby published for general information and due compliance.
2. All Magistrates are to compile a list of part-heard matters in their Courts and forward same to DCR (Legal) High Court, Ikeja for necessary action.
3. The Magistrates who are yet to go on their Year 2009 annual leave are to liaise with the DCR (Admin.), Ikeja so as to arrange for the persons that would relieve them.
4. This posting takes effect 7 (seven) days after the receipt and acknowledgment on record of this Circular by Magistrates to enable proper compliance with the directive in paragraph 2 above.
HON. JUSTICE (MRS.) I.E. AKANDE
CHIEF JUDGE OF LAGOS STATE