The Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Justice Ishaq Bello, has denied stopping the issuance of remand orders to anti-corruption agencies when he recently directed magistrates to stop granting the agencies such orders.

Justice Bello said this on Friday shortly after granting bail to the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olisa Metuh, with respect to the charges of destruction of evidence filed against the opposition party’s spokesperson by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The EFCC had earlier obtained an order from a Magistrate’s Court in the FCT to keep Metuh in custody to enable it to conclude an investigation into a money laundering allegation against him.
 
Justice Bello said in his court in Maitama on Friday that the anti-graft agencies and other security agencies should approach the High Court for orders for the remand of a suspect, instead of going to the magistracy, which lacked the jurisdiction to entertain most of the cases usually handled by them.

He said, “I said on no account should a case, which the magistrate’s courts do not have jurisdiction on, be filed before the magistracy. The cases being handled by the EFCC and the ICPC (the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission) are part of those cases.

“But commentators, who in my view are doing their best to contribute to the development of the criminal justice system, singled out the EFCC as if it is the target of the directive.

“High Court is in a better position to handle such application since we have unlimited jurisdiction.”

But experts have insisted that the clarification made by the Chief Judge negated the express provisions of the ACJ Act, which in Section 293(1) empowers a magistrate to issue a remand order with respect to offences for which the magistracy lacked jurisdiction.

Section 293(1) of the ACJ Act reads, “A suspect arrested for an offence, which a magistrate court has no jurisdiction to try, shall, within a reasonable time of arrest, be brought before a magistrate court for remand.”

Section 291(1) of the law adds, “Where an order of remand of the suspect is made pursuant to Section 293 of this Act, the order shall be for a period not exceeding 14 days in the first instance, and the case shall be returnable within the same period.”

Justice Bello’s clarification followed the criticism drawn by the directive which he issued to the magistrates of the FCT on January 12, during his visit to the Keffi Prison in Nasarawa State, for a review of cases of inmates who were on remand in the prison by the orders made by the FCT courts.

Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Messrs Femi Falana and Sebastine Hon, had faulted the directive issued by the Chief Judge, arguing in separate statements that the CJ’s directive contravened the Supreme Court’s judgment in the case of Lufadeju v Johnson and the provisions of sections 293 and 296(1) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.

Falana had said the directive by the Chief Judge lacked any binding force.

But Justice Bello seized the opportunity of the appearance of an EFCC lawyer, Mr. Sylvanus Tahir, to address the issue on Friday, saying his directive to the magistrates was informed by the ugly trend he noticed during his visit to the Keffi Prison.

He said the problem of long remand of suspects, which had been effectively addressed in the past, was discovered to be rearing its head again during his visit to the Keffi Prison.

He said he discovered that many were now being remanded for a period as long as four years on the orders of magistrate’s courts for offences which even the FCT High Court, not to talk of magistrates, lacked jurisdiction to handle.

“Many of them were remanded for terrorism, which not even is triable by FCT High Court.

“Some of them were on record to have been in remand for four months but when the person came to me, he said, ‘No, I have been here for four years’. This was taking us back to the gloomy days,” the CJ said.

He said his directive was to prevent the situation from degenerating.