Umuahia High Courts grant seven Jewish worshipers bail

Two High Courts sitting in Umuahia, the Abia State capital on Monday granted bail to Seven out of nine Jewish worshipers arrested at the Afara Ukwu country home of the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.

Recall that the worshipers were denied bail and remanded at the Afara Ukwu Prison facility by Chief Magistrate O.U. Ugwu of Umuahia for lack of jurisdiction to try the matter on May 14 after they were brought before the court.

Six of the accused were arraigned at the High Court 1 presided over by the Acting Chief Judge of the state, Justice Onuoha Ogwe while three others were arraigned before Justice O.A. Chijioke of High Court 3.

While Justice Ogwe granted the six accused bail in the sum of N1 million, Justice Chijioke granted one bail in the sum of N200, 000 each, adding that the surety must have verifiable residence and to deposit two copies of recent passports.

Some of the people granted bail was Elder Ifeanyi Nwafor, Nkama Agha, Ifeanyichukwu Anukwua, Mazi Donatus Nwadike, Akelibo Okurishi, Chukwuemeka Adaenyi and Nwaeke Nehemiah. But Uche Ikechukwu and Linus Njoku Ede were not lucky to have been granted bail.

Aloy Ejimakor, counsel to the Jewish nine said “What happened in the court was something that I am satisfied about. We filled the bail applications since the 15^th of May but in the course of trying to get a date for the High Court to consider these bail applications, we discovered that the judiciary in Abia State is highly corrupt. But we were able to get this hearing today by the grace of God. But unfortunately, two out of the nine were bounced off and their hearing is set down for the 19^th of June.

“When the bail came up, we conducted a bail application hearing before High Court 1 for six persons and then proceeded for High Court 3 for the 7^th accused person. I am happy that as counsel that I prevailed on my applications for bail because the charges upon which these people have been detained since the 14^th of last month is spurious and unmeritorious that I begin to wonder whether Nigeria has come to appoint where anybody can just be picked up and carelessly charged for offence as serious as terrorism or engaging in threatening acts that frightened police officers without a shred of evidence.

“The files before my Lordships were without any evidence that the law requires under the criminal procedure act that is applicable in Abia State. Every charge requires proof of evidence, but this is one charge that I have seen in a very long time in this business of law practice that came without any evidence. I think that was what persuaded the court to grant them bail.

“Seven were granted bail. The two that weren’t granted bail because they were denied bail, but they were not granted bail because their cases were not listed before the courts today and I expect to prevail. I blame it on the judiciary who were over worked. The High Court requires more judges. It is not their fault that they don’t have as many judges to handle the magnitude of cases that are coming before the High Court, somewhere along the line, two of these nine were bounced off and set down for 19^th of June which is eight days from today.

“It is instructive to note that all of them were charged together in the same charge sheet. So, I expected that all the nine cases should have been listed before the same court, but unfortunately, they were not, so. I tried all I could to accomplish the task of listing all the nine before the same court, but it didn’t happen. What happened today in court should be sufficient pointer to what will happen on the 19^th because I expect to prevail. It is a bail able offence. They weren’t arrested with any weapon and there is no evidence indicating that violence was at foot. They don’t have any criminal records. They only came to pray and perform some sort of pilgrimage at the home of one of their members; Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, I don’t believe there is enough evidence to keep them in detention for this long. On 19^th June, my argument would be that their way to freedom is long overdue and I will cite what happened in court today for that very court to be aware that bail was granted to co-defendants in the same matter.”