An Ebute-Meta Chief Magistrate’s Court,
Lagos State, has ordered the remand of the Chairman of Meiran branch of
the National Union of Road Transport Workers, Mr. Wasiu Onibudo, for
alleged murder.
The Chief Magistrate, A.F.O. Botoku, who
gave the order on Friday, said the defendant should be remanded pending
legal advice from the Directorate of Public Prosecutions.
The police prosecutors, Mr. Godwn Osuyi
of the State Department of Criminal Investigation, Yaba, and the
resident prosecutor, Daniel Ighodalo, had filed an application for
Onibudo’s remand.
Osuyi had informed the court that the
accused was alleged to have conspired with others now at large to kill
one Taiwo Ogunlaja, by stabbing him to death.
He said the accused committed the
offence during an NURTW’s meeting on December 3, 2015, at the union’s
headquarters on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Ile-Epo, Lagos.
While urging the court to remand
Onibudo, Osuyi said the police’s remand application was supported with a
10-paragraph affidavit, deposed to by one Inspector Bartholomew Ali of
the Inspector-General of Police Monitoring Unit, Abuja.
Attached with the charge sheet was also a
petition written to the police by the plenary solicitors, the deceased
photograph, medical certificate of cause of the death and a statement of
a witness, Ahmed Balogun.
He said his application was brought pursuant to Section 264 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law of Lagos State, 2011.
But the lawyer to the accused, Spurgeon
Ataene, prayed the court to reject the police’s remand application by
considering Section 264 (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(9) and (10) of the ACJLL, 2011.
The section, he said, gave the
magistrate power to look into the circumstances surrounding the accused
person’s action, which would determine if the remand application filed
against him would be granted or not.
“I urge this court that after looking
into the circumstances and not being satisfied, my client should be
admitted to bail in liberal terms,” he added.
But the Chief Magistrate, Botoku,
dismissed the objection raised by Ataene and ordered that the accused be
remanded in prison custody for the first 30 days, pending when the DPP
would issue an advice on the matter.
She asked the police to duplicate the case file and forward same to the DPP for advice.
The matter was adjourned till February 29, 2016.
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