The trial of the immediate past National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd.), and his co-defendants for alleged diversion of N13 billion, part of funds said to be meant for procurement of arms, was yesterday stalled again before an Abuja High Court. Two reasons had stalled the trial yesterday before Justice Peter Affen.
First was that the Department of State Services (DSS) did not bring Dasuki on time. Second was that other defendants in the suit are yet to respond to an application by Dasuki to stop the trial. The DSS had arrived in court with Dasuki, just as the trial court was about to adjourn the matter.
The court adjourned till February 26. Dasuki was slammed with a 22-count charge alongside a former Director of Finance and Administration in the Office of the NSA, Shuaibu Salisu; a former Minister of State for Finance, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda; a former Governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa; the ex-governor’s son, Sagir Attahiru, and a firm, Dalhatu Investment to the tune of N13 billion.
New Telegraph recalls that a similar development had occurred before Justice Hussein Baba Yusuf of the same Abuja High Court on January 22 when the trial could not go ahead because of the application brought by Dasuki.
The court had adjourned till February 4 to hear the application. The former NSA is standing trial over alleged 19-count charge of diversion of N32 billion arms fund, along with Salisu and a former Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Aminu Baba-Kusa. Aminu-Kausa’s two firms – Acacia Holdings Ltd and Reliance Referral Hospital Limited – are also part of the accused.
In the applications filed before the two judges, Dasuki’s counsel, Joseph Daudu (SAN), argued that the prosecution lacked the right to continue to prosecute him.
Three different courts had granted Dasuki bail on three different occasions. Despite the bail order, the DSS had failed to release Dasuki from detention. Having perfected his last bail granted by Justice Yusuf, and released by the prison authority, operatives of the DSS on December 29, 2015 re-arrested him at the prison’s gate.
At the last adjourned date, defense counsel, Daudu brought an “unless application” challenging the disobedience of the Federal Government to the earlier bail granted Dasuki. Daudu submitted that the Federal Government cannot go ahead with the trial, having disobeyed an order of court which granted bail to the accused person.
He added that a party who disobeyed the order of the court cannot come back to same court with a request.
