By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA—A Federal High Court
in Abuja, Wednesday, slated
February 11 to determine
whether six alleged kingpins
of the Boko Haram sect in
Niger State, have a case to
answer regarding the
explosion that rocked the
office of the Independent
National Electoral
Commission, INEC, in Suleja,
prior to the April 16, 2011,
presidential election.
The suspects include Shuaibu
Abubakar, Salisu Ahmed,
Umar Babagana-Umar,
Mohammed Ali, Musa Adam
and Umar Ibrahim.
Justice Bilkisu Aliyu
adjourned the matter for
ruling after all the parties
adopted their written
addresses yesterday.
The accused persons, who
were apprehended while on
their way to Kaduna State to
attack the venue of an event
attended by Vice President
Namadi Sambo in Kaduna on
July 28, 2011, had in a
motion filed through their
lawyers Mr. Kelvin Okoro and
Mr Nureni Sulaiman,
challenged the powers of the
federal government to
prosecute them.
It was their contention that
the federal government
failed to establish a nexus
between them and the
charge, insisting that the
sum total of the evidence
tendered against them
amounted to ‘hearsay’ which
they said “is not admissible
in law.”
Consequently, the accused
persons filed a consolidated
motion wherein they made a
‘no-case-submission’.
Basically, a no-case-
submission is made when an
accused person believes that
the prosecution has failed to
prove the ingredients of the
offence for which he is
charged or that the evidence
adduced in court was such
that a judge cannot rely
upon to pass a sentence.
Meanwhile, the States
Security Service, SSS, which
recommended their trial, had
maintained that its
investigations revealed that it
was the accused persons
that masterminded various
terrorist attacks that killed 28
persons between March and
July, 2011.
The prosecution had alleged
that six of them , “between
June 4 and July 12, (both
dates inclusive) at various
locations in Suleja, Niger
state, Azare, Nasarawa state
and the FCT, did engage in an
act of terrorism by
encouraging through
training persons now at
large, the use of arms and
ammunition, and the
preparation, planting and
detonation of improvised
explosive devices for the
purpose of terrorism and
thereby committed an
offence contrary to section
15 (2) of EFCC Act 2004 and
punishable under the same
section of the Act.”
They were said to have
supervised the bombing of a
village, Dakna, in Bwari,
Abuja, on May 23; an incident
SSS said resulted in the death
of three Peace Officers, as
well as detonated an
improvised explosive device
at a political rally in Suleja
which resulted in the death
of three persons too.
However, though they had
on September 30, 2011,
pleaded not guilty to a 5-
count charge that was
preferred against them by
the Federal Government, they
have since remained at Kuje
prisons from where they
attend their trial.
If convicted, the offence for
which the accused persons
are answering to attracts a
punishment of life
imprisonment.
It will be recalled that a
senior Army officer who led
the team of soldiers that
caught the suspects at
Gummel Junction at Kachia
Kaduna on July 27, 2011, had
in his evidence-in-chief, told
the trial court that a text
message found in the inbox
of a mobile handset
confiscated from one of the
suspects, revealed that each
of the accused persons were
promised an inheritance of
72 virgins in paradise
assuming they succeeded in
bombing the event that was
attended by the Vice
President and some
Northern Governors.
Likewise, the high court had
on December 20, 2012,
admitted into evidence, 250
different explosive making
devices that were allegedly
recovered from the accused
persons.
A representative of the
Nigerian Army, whose
identity was masked by the
federal government owing to
the sensitive nature of the
case, while tendering the
evidence in court, warned
that “the dangerous
components of Improvised
Explosive Device, IED, we
caught them with, if you
prime them, it can in matter
of seconds bring down the
whole of this high court
building.”
Consequently trial justice
Bilkisu Aliyu declined to take
custody of the evidence
comprising IEDs and bundles
of connector wires, even as
she granted the SSS leave to
take them away for safe
keeping pending when it
would be needed for
examination by the court.
Besides, the court had
equally admitted into
evidence, a black Honda Civic
with registration number
AG-94-NMG, in which three of
the suspects were arrested,
even as the suspects
conceded before the court
that the car actually belonged
to them.