Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court Abuja has excused himself from hearing the treason charges filed against Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra by the Federal Government. Justice Mohammed's decision comes after Nnamdi Kanu this morning objected to the judge hearing the six count charge filed against him by the Federal government.Kanu during court hearing argued that the hearing will be an exercise in futility as officials of the Department of State Security will not obey any order in his favor."Thank you very much my lordship, but my objection is that I will not receive a fair trial before this court. The information I got is that I will not receive a fair trial before this court. I willnot sacrifice the due process of law because of speedy court process over the principle of natural process on the altar of speedy release. In other words, I would rather remain in detention than subject myself to a trial that I know amounts to perversion of justice. Your lordship, previous court rulings have been given by courts of competent jurisdiction in this country, Nigeria which were not carried out by theDSS"he saidCounsel to the Federal government who is also theFederal Director of Prosecution, office of the Attorney General, Mohamed Diri, argued that based on section 396 (2) of the constitution, Kanu had no right to object to being tried by the court until after the plea is heard. However Diri'ssubmission was overruled by the judge because according to him, Kanu had the right to reject the trial, "after all justice is rooted on confidence"."If any of the parties has no confidence in the court, he has the right to say so", the judge said. He added that the prosecution would have done the same thing if they were in Kanu's shoes. "Assuming it was the prosecution, if they had no confidence in the court of jurisdiction; would they not have done so? I hereby remit the case file to the honorable chief judge of this court to reassign it" the judge said.Kanu is being tried on a six count charge which treason.
Prof. AbduGaniyu Ambali, the Vice-Chancellor, University of Ilorin, said on Friday that the institution had produced a total of 89 first class graduates for the 2016/2017 academic session. The Vice-Chancellor made this disclosure in Ilorin on the occasion of a handover and valedictory press conference, which signaled the commencement of the 33rd convocation ceremonies of the university. In his address entitled: “You are great”, the VC said that the university was thriving academically, going by the quality and quantity of research works embarked upon by lecturers. He gave a breakdown of the graduating students thus: 89 First Class Division, 1,932 Second Class Upper Division and 3,727 Second Class Lower Division. The VC also said that 1,309 of them graduated with Third Class Division, 117 with ordinary pass while there were two aegrotat graduating students. While handing over to Pro...
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