The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday urged the Federal High Court, Abuja, not to grant the bail variation application filed by a British national, James Nolan.
\nThe EFCC Counsel, Bala Sanga, who made the request, told Justice Okon Abang that the Commission would file a counter-affidavit on the matter. Sanga said Nolan\u2019s counsel, Chris Ezugwu,\u00a0served on him the further affidavit, seeking the court\u2019s leave to grant their request, on Wednesday.
\nHe said: \u201cI apply for a shift in the date to take our arguments, My Lord, in order to enable us to file a counter-affidavit in response to further affidavit served on us less than 24 hours before the court sitting. \u201cWe were served about 2:00 p.m. yesterday (Wednesday).\u201d
\nThe prosecution counsel, therefore, prayed the court to give him some days to file his counter-affidavit on Nolan\u2019s request.
\nThe defendant\u2019s counsel who acknowledged serving the fresh application on Sanga the previous day objected to the EFCC\u2019s plea for adjournment.
\nJustice Abang, thereafter, adjourned proceeding till December 6 for further hearing of the application. He said the move was necessary for the interest of justice.
\nJustice Abang said: \u201cI think it is in the interest of justice to adjourn this matter to enable the prosecution to respond to further affidavit serve on them by the defendant\u2019s counsel.\u201d
\nShortly after the court sitting, Sanga told journalists that the Commission was against Nolan\u2019s plea for bail variation because of the peculiar circumstances of the case.
\n\u201cWe are opposed to the court making the conditions of bail lighter because there are some documents from Nigeria Immigration Service that are indicative of the fact that Nolan committed immigration quota trafficking and possibly could be illegal alien,\u201d he stated.
\nThe EFCC\u2019s lawyer stressed Nolan might jump bail if the request is granted. Justice Abang had on November 7 granted the Briton bail in the sum of N500 million.
\nThe judge also ordered the applicant to produce a surety in like sum, who must be a Nigerian and a serving senator not standing any criminal trial in any court in Nigeria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday urged the Federal High Court, Abuja, not to grant the bail variation application filed by a British national, James Nolan. The EFCC Counsel, Bala Sanga, who made the request, told Justice Okon Abang that the Commission would file a counter-affidavit on the matter. Sanga said Nolan\u2019s counsel, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":208962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=221759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/208962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=221759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=221759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=221759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}