Yahaya Bello requests indefinite adjournment of court case

Former Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, appeared before a Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday, July 17, 2024, and requested that the court suspend indefinitely the proceedings in the fraud and money laundering case brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Bello petitioned the court to rescind its warrant for his arrest, pending the outcome of his appeal filed at the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal.

According to a letter dated July 12, 2024, and addressed to Justice Emeka Nwite, the trial judge, Yahaya Bello’s legal counsel, Musa Yakubu, SAN, submitted a formal request on behalf of his client, outlining his demands, including an indefinite adjournment and the vacation of the arrest warrant, ahead of his scheduled arraignment on July 17, 2024.

Bello, who is being tried for allegedly laundering over N80 billion requested in the letter that further proceedings in the charge should be adjourned sine die, pending the determination of the appeal currently pending at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.

The letter, which was copied the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, was in response to a letter to Justice Nwite by the EFCC dated July 8, and filed on July 10, 2024.

In the letter, the EFCC requested a variation of the earlier warrant of arrest issued against Bello, therefore requested that the various security agencies be specifically directed to carry out the earlier arrest.

But, responding to the EFCC’s application, Musa Yakubu, SAN, Counsel to Bello, urged the court to decline the request and await the outcome of the appeal pending at the Court of Appeal over the said warrant of arrest and other related pronouncements of the trial court.

Yakubu made reference to the position of the law as contained in Order 4 Rule 11(1) of the Court of Appeal Rules, 2021, and the pronouncement of the Supreme Court in the case of Vab Petroleum INC V. Momah (Supra), and a litany of other cases.

Yakubu said; “We respectfully urge the court to set aside and expunge from its records, the proceedings of the 27th June 2024, including any ruling, order or directive carried out in the face of the defendant’s appeal entered on the 24th of May, 2024”.

The counsel for Yahaya Bello respectfully requested that the court suspend all further proceedings in this matter indefinitely (sine die), pending the outcome of Appeal No: CA/ABJ/CR/536/2024, which the defendant has filed at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.