Former Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu and his former Chief of Staff, Umar Gado Nasko are to face a fresh trial.
On Tuesday, Justice A. B. Aliyu of the Federal High Court, Minna, relisted the fraud case involving the duo.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting Aliyu and Nasko (first and second defendants) on three-count amended charge of breach of trust and money laundering to the tune of N2billion.
The case was struck out on June 19, 2020.
On October 13, prosecution counsel, Faruk Abdalla, filed a motion to set aside the ruling, as well as an order for the relisting of the charge.
The lawyer supported the application with 21-paragraph affidavit, deposed to by Samuel Chime.
“We rely on all the paragraphs; we also file a written address in support, we adopt the written address as our oral submission and we pray the court to grant our prayers in the motion papers”, it read.
Mamman Mike Osman (SAN), counsel to Nasko represented by Iloh Bekeme Asuelemeh, prayed the court to overrule the application.
Asuelemeh noted that the defence had filed a 33 paragraph counter-affidavit, deposed to by John Kyrian Etuk, and documented as exhibit QJ1-QJ6.
He said the references had been adopted as the written address of the defence.
Justice Aliyu reinstated the bail granted to the defendants and adjourned the matter until November 23 and 24, 2020.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator and a recipient of the D9112 Superstar Icon Award, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
