Posted by By AbdulWahab Abdulah & Yomi Ologunleko on
A CONVICT, Emmanuel Nwude, and a senior prison warden, Inspector Cornelius Ibe, were yesterday formally arraigned on five count charge of.....
A CONVICT, Emmanuel Nwude, and a senior prison warden, Inspector Cornelius Ibe, were yesterday formally arraigned on five count charge of perverting justice, assault and abuse of office before a Lagos High Court, Ikeja. They were accused of kidnaping a prosecution witness, Mr Dayo Ogunseye in a case of 419 involving Nwude in 2005.
It would be recalled that in the wake of the bomb scare at the premises of the Ikeja High Court, Lagos on September 13, 2005, one Mr Dayo Ogunseye, a prosecution witness for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in a $242 million case involving Nwude and three others was allegedly kidnaped in order to deprive him of documentary evidence he intended to tender before the trial judge, Justice Joseph Oyewole.
Subsequently, the Lagos State government constituted a panel of inquiry to investigate the bomb scare and the alleged kidnap. Among its recommendations was that the two suspects (Nwude and Ibe) were liable in the said kidnap.
Nwude who forfeited his properties to the Federal Government after he was found guilty of swindling a Brazilian bank is presently serving a jail term at the Kirikiri prison in Lagos, while the prison official is still in service.
When they were arraigned before Justice Benedicta Shitta-Bey yesterday on five count charge of perverting justice, assault, destroying evidence, deprivation of liberty and abuse of office, the accused persons pleaded not guilty to the charges, while the prison official was admitted to bail in the sum of N500,000 with two sureties in like sum.
The charges partly read 'assault contrary to Section 351 of the Criminal Code Cap C.17 Vol. 2 Laws of Lagos State 2003, Chief Emmanuel Odinigwe Nwude and Inspector Cornelius Ibe on or about the 13th of September, 1995 at Ikeja judicial division assaulted Dayo Ogunseye, (a banker). Perverting justice contrary to Section 126(2) of the Criminal Code Cap. C.17 Vol.2 Laws of Lagos State 2003, attempted to pervert the course of justice, willfully removed your passport photograph attached to the Standard Trust Mandate Card with intent thereby to prevent it from being used in evidence.
'Abuse of office contrary to Section 104 of the Criminal Code Cap. C.17 Vol. 2 Laws of Lagos State 2003, you Inspector C. Ibe being employed in the public service abused the authority of your office by arbitrarily depriving one Dayo Ogunseye of his personal liberty."
Two of them pleaded not guilty, on application for bail by his counsel, Mr Isaac Boro, Ibe was admitted to bail while further hearing was adjourned till September 25, 2006.