The Court of Appeal on Wednesday sacked Justice Okon Abang from hearing a case against former governor of Benue, Gabriel Suswam alongside Okolobia Okpanachi, his former Commissioner of Finance.
This is coming barely 2 weeks after Abang of the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the arrest of the publisher of Igbere TV News ,Emeh James Anyalekwa.
Abang’s order followed a publication by Nigerian Concord, claiming the court had concluded plans to jail at all cost, a former Benue governor Gabriel Suswam, who is standing trial over alleged N3.1 billion fraud; which was republished by Igbere TV while also giving full credits to the online platform (Nigerian Concord) on whose website the story first appeared.
The former governor is being accused of diverting N3.1 billion from the proceeds of the sale of shares owned by Benue Government since 2015.
It was recall that Justice Abang took over the trial of Suswam, following the withdrawal of Justice Mohammed.
Justice Mohammed had cited a publication by Sahara Reporters which accused him of having been compromised to give Suswam a soft landing as his reason to withdraw from the case.
However, in a unanimous judgment, the appellate court ordered that the case should be sent back to Justice Mohammed of the same court for continuation of trial.
Justice Emmanuel Agim who delivered the judgment, also ordered that Justice Mohammed who had shown unjustified reluctance in entertaining the case should give the trial an accelerated hearing.
The court held that Justice Mohammed was wrong to have recuse himself from conducting the trial on account of fear, when all the parties had expressed confidence in him.
It held that its decision to return the case back to Justice Mohammed was to correct the error made by the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court by re-assigning the case to him.
Justice Agim further held that the exercise of discretion should be in a rational manner and properly to the satisfaction of all the parties.
Source: Igbere TV
