It is no longer strange for high-profile public officials as well as other Nigerians to ‘take ill’ as soon as they are charged to court. This trial sickness syndrome has become more pronounced especially with the anti-corruption campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari. SAMSON BENJAMIN and PAUL OKAH in this report look at those claims.
The trial of high-profile and politically exposed Nigerians is always riddled with drama and sensationalism. Upon arrest and/or detention by law enforcement and anti-graft agencies, many allegedly feign one ailment or the other probably in an attempt to evade justice.
El-Zakzaky
The Kaduna state High Court on Monday August 5, 2019, granted the embattled leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, and his wife Zeenat, leave to seek medical attention abroad.
The presiding judge ruled that El-Zakzaky and his wife should proceed to India for medical treatment.
Speaking on the ruling, the counsel to the El-Zakzakys, Mr Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said the judgement is just to grant the IMN leader and his wife leave to seek medical attention abroad and not an outright bail.
Mr Falana, a human rights activist, had filed the application on behalf of his clients on July 18, 2019.
At an earlier hearing on Monday July 29, 2019, the senior lawyer told Justice Khobo that his clients were not in court due to their bad health condition.
He said the health condition of his clients was getting worse by the day, adding that only a foreign medical treatment was required to stabilise them to enable them to be ready to face the main trial.
El-Zakzaky and his wife are facing an eight-count charge of culpable homicide, unlawful assembly, disturbance of public peace.
With this leave, El-Zakzaky joins a long list of high-profile Nigerians and politicians who suddenly developed health challenges after being accused of one form of crime or corruption.
Other cases
There are other high-profile Nigerians who suddenly developed illnesses after being charged with corruption by anti-graft and other law enforcement agencies.
Olisa Metuh
The former national publicity secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh, made a dramatic entrance into an Abuja Federal High Court on Monday, February 5, 2018, when he was wheeled into the courtroom on a stretcher after he arrived in an ambulance.
Metuh’s appearance was ‘forced’ because an earlier plea to the court to adjourn trial due to his hospitalisation had been turned down by Justice Okon Abang who was unimpressed with the doctor’s note he sent.
Diezani Alison-Madueke
The former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has been allegedly linked to a plethora of money laundering scandals that are too many to count. She was one of the most powerful members in former President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet.
Since that administration ended in 2015, Diezani has been plagued with so many accusations, as she faces criminal probes in Nigeria and the United Kingdom under suspicion of money laundering and its attendant crimes.
In 2015, a photograph of a physically-ravaged Diezani was published by the publisher of Ovation magazine, Dele Momodu, who confirmed that she had been receiving treatment for breast cancer, something she had denied before the allegations started piling up.
Speaking with Blueprint Weekend on Diezani’s alleged ill-health, the convener of Anti-Corruption Network, a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), Barrister Chris Agbaje, said, “Many Nigerians still regard the release of her pictures while in hospital as a last-ditch attempt by the former minister to curry sympathy as revelations about her fraudulent financial dealings as minister continue to make waves till date.”
Dino Melaye
The Nigeria Police Force on May 2, 2018, arraigned Senator Dino Melaye before a Chief Magistrate Court in Abuja for attempting to kill himself by jumping out of a vehicle conveying him to Lokoja to face criminal allegations against him.
Dino, was brought before the court on a stretcher, pleaded not guilty to the charge and was granted bail on health grounds.
However, the police promptly re-arrested Melaye to face another criminal charge against him in Lokoja, Kogi state.
The Force Headquarters, in a statement to that effect, by its former spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, said Melaye had been certified fit by the National Hospital, Abuja, where he was admitted to earlier, and would be taken to Lokoja for subsequent arraignment in court there.
Femi Fani-Kayode
This former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, is one of the most vocal voices of opposition in Nigeria, but he is also standing trial for alleged N4.9 billion money laundering charge in court.
The 17-count charge against him includes alleged conspiracy, unlawful retention of proceeds of theft and money laundering in a case that also involves a former Minister of State for Finance, Nenadi Usman.
On Wednesday, January 31, 2018, Fani-Kayode failed to show up for a court hearing ‘due to health reasons.’
His attorney, Norrison Quakers (SAN), reported that he was hospitalised with a heart-related ailment and asked for an adjournment that was granted.
Nenadi Usman
Fani-Kayode was not the first defendant to stall a trial with an illness. In February 2017, Usman, also a former minister listed as first defendant in Fani-Kayode’s fraud trial, revealed to the court that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
She asked Justice Muslim Hassan of the Federal High Court in Lagos to permit her to travel abroad to receive treatment as recommended by doctors at the National Hospital after suffering a relapse after a surgery.
Justice Rilwan Aikawa granted Usman’s request in December 2017 and asked that her passport be released to her to enable her travel to the United States of America.
She was ordered to resume for the court’s hearing on January 31, 2018, the same day Fani-Kayode engineered an adjournment with his own hospitalisation.
Kingsley Kuku
A former presidential adviser on Niger Delta and chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Kingsley Kuku, was rumoured to have fled Nigeria after he was invited for questioning by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2015.
The former aide to former president, Jonathan, responded to the rumours by releasing pictures of his knee operation in the United States and denied being a fugitive.
The EFCC had traced alleged mismanagement in the Niger Delta amnesty funds to Kuku, who later launched an unsuccessful attempt in court to block the anti-graft agency from arresting him as he remains in the wind till date.
His aides while in office, Lawrence Pepple and Henry Ogbulue, were separately arraigned in court by the EFCC for criminal conspiracy and fraudulent acquisition of property as public servants.
Bala Ngilari
Former Adamawa state governor, Bala Ngilari, was sentenced by the state’s High Court to five years in prison on March 6, 2017, after he was accused by the EFCC of processing a N169 million contract without due process.
Not only was he sentenced to a prison of his own choosing, he was controversially granted bail only weeks later after citing medical concerns that included high blood pressure, diabetes, and insomnia.
His release was controversial as three senior prison officials were suspended after it came to light that the medical report that aided Ngilari’s release was not authorised by the prison authorities.
On July 20, 2017, a Court of Appeal in Yola dismissed all charges against Ngilari and set him free due to lack of merit and sufficient proof of the allegations against him.
Andrew Yakubu
Many Nigerians were left shell-shocked when the EFCC said it had recovered $9, 8 million and £74, 000 cash from a house in Kaduna owned by Andrew Yakubu, a former Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The EFCC quoted Yakubu as saying the money, about N3 billion, was “gift from unnamed persons.”
Yakubu even filed a counter-charge, asking the Kano state High Court to overturn an interim forfeiture order it had placed on the recovered money.
The EFCC eventually arraigned Yakubu before Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on a six-count charge of money laundering and false assets declaration; he pleaded not guilty.
But in May 2017, barely two months after his trial began, Yakubu suddenly developed an illness that he needed to travel to the United Kingdom to get treatment for.
He applied and was granted permission to travel, even though the trial judge ordered that he must return after three weeks to face his trial.
Doubts over ill-health
Some lawyers who spoke with Blueprint Weeken,d however, expressed doubts over the various claims of ill-health put forward by high-profile Nigerians especially politicians. They describe it as a ploy attracts public sympathy.
Justice Abang had, when delivering judgement on Metuh’s bail application on health grounds, ruled that, “This court shall, henceforth, not accept any other medical report issued by any medical doctor in Nigeria until the trial is concluded.
“It is expected that the defendant will turn to a new leaf, show compulsion and attend his trial on February 5 and 6. If he fails to appear in court on these dates fixed for continuation of his trial, his bail shall be revoked and he will be remanded in prison custody.”
Speaking with Blueprint Weekend, a professor of law at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, Emeka Okolie, expressed doubts as to whether the claims of ill-health by high-profile Nigerians and politicians are true.
He said: “Metuh’s case has always stood out among many other corruption cases which the EFCC instituted since 2015, when President Muhammadu Buhari administration came on board.
“From Metuh’s detention in Kuje Prison, Abuja, at the early stage of the trial, to his subsequent court appearance on wheelchair on grounds of ill-health, and his allegation of bias against the judge, Justice Okon Abang, the trial has slid from one drama to the other, stirring the interest of the public.
“Most times, these claims of illnesses are a ploy to attract sympathy from gullible Nigerians and civil society organisations. If you remember, the trial judge on Olisa Metuh’s case, Justice Okon Abang, while delivering a ruling on an application seeking the release of Metuh’s international passport to enable him to travel abroad for medical treatment, also doubted his claim of being sick.”
Similarly, in a chat with this reporter, Barrister Issa Abdul accused some public officials of committing crime with impunity and acting sick in court to avoid trial.
He said, “I am worried by the attitudes of public officials who play the sick game whenever they are being tried. The only thing is from what I see on television, it is difficult for me to know whether it is genuine or fake.
“I think in the case of Olisa Metuh, the court did not take his medical condition that seriously. The court didn’t think it was genuine or as serious as he wanted it to be. We have to go by what the court says.
“This is our attitude in this country. When you are engaging in impunity, you do it in full health, but when payback time comes, then you are sick and you want to avoid the consequences of what you did with open eyes.
“This is what I am always talking about. Let us do what is right and not now begin to look for excuses and promote sentiments when you are being visited by the law for the wrongdoings you committed. It is very unfortunate.”
‘Nigerian law favours the rich’
Similarly, speaking with this reporter, the chairperson of Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of over 70 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), a prominent human rights activist and lawyer, Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, condemned the Nigerian Bar and Bench as well as the criminal justice system for working in favour of the rich as against poor Nigerians.
She said the Nigeria judicial system treats the rich with respect, presuming them innocent of all criminal activities until proven guilty.
She said the anti-graft agencies in the country are part of the problem because they are yet to secure convictions in many high-profile cases.
She said: “By virtue of Section 17 (2) (a) of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), every citizen shall have equality of rights, obligations and opportunities before the law.
“But in practice, the rich and poor defendants are not treated equally by Nigerian courts. Apart from the fact that rich litigants have the means to hire the services of the best lawyers in any area of the law, the courts are manned by judges who are not neutral in the class struggle being waged daily by the Nigerian people.”
She also said apart from two former governors, Joshua Dariye of Plateau state and Jolly Nyame of Taraba state, other convicted persons are lowly-placed individuals in the society.
She said, “Notwithstanding that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been accused by the bourgeois media of engaging in Gestapo tactics with respect to the treatment of suspects, it cannot be denied that the rights of influential criminal suspects are well respected by the commission.
“The big men and women implicated in allegations of serious economic crimes being investigated by the commission usually receive polite letters of invitation, telephone calls or text messages advising them to contact named investigators whose telephone numbers are supplied.
“If and whenever influential criminal suspects report themselves they are treated with the utmost courtesy by the investigators. Since they are presumed innocent until they are proved guilty by the state they are never paraded before the media, regardless of the gravity of the offence committed by them.”
He urged the Nigerian judicial system to follow the pattern obtained in Western countries where the rich and the poor are treated equally before the law.
“Unlike what obtains in western countries it is infra dignitate (beneath dignity) to subject big men and women to the restraint of handcuffs in Nigeria. Hence, hell was let loose when a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party on trial for money laundering was recently handcuffed by the Kuje prison authorities,” she said.
Ill-health, permissible condition for bail
Reacting to the development, a legal practitioner, Barrister Ifeanyichukwu Ologwu, of IUC Global Chambers in Awka, Anambra state, said the onus lies on the accused to prove his ill-health, as it is a condition permissible in law for a bail condition.
He, however, regretted the fact that many accused exploit this loophole in law to frustrate judgement, especially as many of them collapse in court during proceedings.
“The position of the Nigerian law is that an accused person must always be in court during the whole of his trial – s. 210 CPA, s. 208 ACJL and s. 153 and 234(1) CPC. See Adeoye v. State, Lawrence v. King. Trial of an accused person in absentia is unknown to the Nigerian law. He must be in attendance from the commencement of the trial to the time he is sentenced or acquitted, although there are few exceptions.
“Also, the accused has right under our constitution to be given adequate time to prepare his defence – s. 36(6) (b) CFRN – The right of the accused person to adequate time and facilities to prepare for his defence extend to seeking adjournment. The courts are enjoined to grant an accused adjournment.
“It is worthy of note that issues relating to health are taken seriously by our courts, and in most cases can ground an adjournment or stall proceedings whenever they are raised. This has led to many prominent Nigerians charged with corruption offences seeking series of adjournment on the guise of sickness, bearing in mind that such application can hardly be refused,” he said.
Ologwu further said, “In most cases, many even rely on that as a ground for bail if still in custody. It is the law that even in capital offences application for bail on ground of ill-health is hardly refused. On health condition of the accused person: see Fawehinmi v. State, Abacha v. State, Ofulue v. FGN (2005) 3 NWLR 913.
“When an accused person relies on ill-health as a ground for bail, the court ought to consider bail. It is the onus on the party alleging the existence or non-existence of a set of facts to prove same. This means that if the accused alleges ill health, the onus is on him to prove same.
“The burden is lessened when the said accused collapses during trial. That act to me is more like asking the court to take judicial notice of the accused person’s health condition, which may be a ground for adjournment of the proceeding.
“From the foregoing, there’s no gain saying that hardly are corruption cases in Nigeria prosecuted to a logical conclusion and the reason is not far-fetched. Most offenders employ all sorts of gimmicks or delay measures in a bid to frustrate or scuttle the hearing by feigning sickness or collapsing in the court room.”
