46 days after he was arrested by the Department of State Services, DSS and two weeks after a Federal High Court in Abuja gave an order for his release or arraignment for any offence he might have allegedly committed, suspended Central Bank Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, was yesterday arraigned for illegal possession of firearms and granted bail by a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos.
Emefiele’s arraignment was, however, enmeshed in drama, following a scuffle between DSS operatives and officials of the Nigerian Prisons Service, over which of the agencies should take custody of Emefiele after he was granted bail in the sum of N20million by Justice Nicholas Oweibo.
The scuffle between the two agencies later culminated in a free-for-all as the Armed Squad Commander of the NPS, Williams Udom, who had come to give tactical support to the prison officials in the court premises, was manhandled, with his service uniform torn.
It took the intervention of a senior female DSS official, who arrived at the scene hours after the standoff and had a brief chat with NCoS officials and her operatives to douse the tension.
This paved way for the DSS to re-arrest Emefiele immediately after he stepped out of the courtroom.
In a two-count charge filed before the court, the Federal Government alleged that Mr Emefiele was found in possession of a single-barrel shotgun (Jojeff Magnum 8371) without a license on June 15, 2023, at No.3b Ibru Close, Ikoyi, Lagos.
In the second count, the suspended CBN governor was accused of having in his possession 123 rounds of live ammunition (cartridges) without a license, which is contrary to Section 8 of the Firearms Act 2004 and punishable under Section 27 (1)(b)(il) of the same Act.
The government maintained that the offence was contrary to Section 4 of the Firearms Act, 2004, and punishable under Section 27 (1b).
After the charges were read to him, Emefiele insisted on his innocence and pleaded not guilty to the allegation.
After the arraignment, Emefiele’s counsel and former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Chief Joseph Daudu, SAN, drew the attention of the court to his application for bail which had earlier been filed and urged the court to grant his client bail on self-recognition or on any other reasonable terms.
Daudu told the court that his client had been in the DSS custody for over 46 days and prayed to the court to end the oppression of his client.
Daudu’s bail application was, however, opposed by a Deputy Director of the Federal Ministry of Justice, Nkiru Jones-Nebo, who prayed the court that Emefiele should not be released because he is a flight risk.
Jones-Nebo, who claimed among others that she had “not been given the bail application,” argued among others, that the defendant can evade trial or use his power as CBN boss to intimidate his colleagues and prevent the trial from going on.
As I stand here, I have not seen it,” she said, praying for time to respond to the application.
In a bench ruling, after hearing arguments of parties in the matter, Justice Oweibo rejected Jones-Nebo’s claim, insisting that the government failed to provide any fact to support its claim.
He held I find and hold that the prosecution has failed to establish why the defendant should not be granted bail.
Consequently, the defendant is admitted to bail in the sum of N20 million with one surety in the like sum.
The surety must be the owner of landed property within the jurisdiction of the court, who must not be less than level 16 in the Nigerian civil service. The defendant must deposit his international passport with the court.
The judge remanded the defendant in prison custody, against the request of the prosecution that the defendant be remanded in DSS custody for further investigation on another matter that might soon be filed in court and adjourned the matter till November 14, 2023, for trial.
A few minutes after the matter was adjourned, Daudu raised the alarm that the DSS is bent on re-arresting his client, despite bail granted him by the court.
Addressing the court, Daudu said with the development, he would want to perfect the bail conditions so that his client would be allowed to go free.
But the judge, still in doubt on what further steps he could take in the circumstances, told Daudu to allow him dispose of other matters before the court and get back to him.
Outside the court premises, skirmishes between the DSS and Nigerian Correctional Service, NCoS, officials led to a scuffle which almost snowballed into a free for all between the two agencies of government.
In preparation to re-arrest Emefiele, the DSS had positioned a pick-up van near the entrance of the courtroom where the trial was ongoing.
In a counter move, NPS officials who had parked their prisons pick-up van far from the entance, drove the van closer to the DSS van, also ready to take custody of Emefiele.
For over two hours, operatives of both agencies remained in combat position, raising tension of possible clash.
At some point in the imbroglio, NCoS brought in reinforcement from its armed squad to counter the huge number of heavily armed DSS operatives who took strategic positions in the court premises.
Sensing that there might be an attempt by Prisons officials to whisk Emefiele out of the court through the judge’s chambers, the DSS operatives surrounded Justice Oweibo’s chamber in readiness to foil the move.
While the tension between the two agencies simmered, Daudu addressed the media and raised concerns over the action of the DSS, saying what was happening to his client was no longer prosecution but persecution.
