The Federal High Court in Abuja, on Thursday, adjourned the trial of Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, on alleged defamatory remarks against President Bola Tinubu, for continuation of hearing.
The case, scheduled for Thursday, could not proceed due to the absence of Justice Mohammed Umar in court.
Although lawyer to the prosecution, Akinlu Kehibde, SAN, and that of the defence, Marshall Abubakar, were in court, including the defendant and the prosecution witness, Justice Umar, the trial judge, was said to be in another official engagement.
Sowore is being prosecuted by the Department of State Services (DSS) for allegedly making false claims against the person of Present Tinubu by referring to him as “a criminal” in a post he made on his “X” and Facebook accounts.
Justice Umar had, on Feb. 4, rejected two documents tendered by Sowore in his ongoing trial.
The judge, in a ruling, declined an oral application by Sowore’s lawyer, seeking an order admitting a set of documents, including print-outs of publications in evidence.
The publications include media reports about DSS’ dismissal of 115 officials for misconduct; the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) charging five ex-governors with corruption; EFCC’s sacking 27 of its officials over fraud and misconduct and EFCC’s arrest of some ex-staff of the NNPCL over N7.2 billion fraud.
In the ruling, Justice Umar agreed with the DSS lawyer that the best opportunity for the defendant to tender the documents is during the conduct of his defence.
The judge held that since the first prosecution witness (PW-1), Cyril Nosike, an operative of the secret police, being cross-examined by Abubakar, said he knew nothing about the publications contained in the documents, such documents could not be tendered through the witness.
In the second ruling, the judge rejected another set of documents which comprised of print-outs of publications which Abubakar claimed showed that President Tinubu allegedly called former President Goodluck Jonathan “a drunkard and sinking fisherman,” and where he also called former President Olusegun Obasanjo “an expired meat.”
The judge marked the documents rejected for the same reason he gave in rejecting the first set of documents.
Justice Umar, however, frowned at the report by the prosecuting lawyer that a member of the defence team had live streamed previous proceedings in the case and urged the court to order an investigation to identify the person behind it.
Although Abubakar denied that any member of the defence team was involved and claimed that it could have been done by the DSS or people in the presidency, the judge said such conduct amounted to contempt of court.
Abubakar urged the court to only caution against a repeat of such an incident, but to decline the request by the prosecuting lawyer that an investigation be ordered by the court.
