BREAKING: Court Remands Protesters In Prison
Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has ordered the remand of some of the protesters of the recent #EndBadGovernance protest at the Kuje Correctional Center in Abuja pending the hearing and ruling on their bail application slated for September 11, 2024.
The Judge fixed the date on Monday after they pleaded not guilty to the six-count charge, bordering on terrorism slammed against them by the Federal Government.
After the defendants took their plea, their counsel moved an oral application for their bail which was opposed by counsel to the prosecution, Simon Lough, SAN on the ground that some of the charges against the defendants carry capital punishment.
However, Justice Nwite overruled the request by the defendants’ counsel that they should be remanded in the custody of the Police and ordered that they should be remanded at the Kuje Correctional Center in Abuja, while the female among them be remanded at the Keffi Correctional Center in Nasarawa state and adjourned till September 11 for ruling on their bail application.
In the six-count charge filed on August 30, 2024, and signed by DCP Simon Lough, SAN, for the Inspector General of Police (IGP), the Federal Government also named a British citizen, Andrew Wynne, aka Andrew Povich, (Now at Lage) as a defendant.
In the charge sheet marked, FHC/ABJ/CR/454/2024, the defendants, with ten of them arraigned and some at large, were accused of “treason, destabilising the country, intimidating the President and destroying the NCC in Kano,” among others.
The IGP specifically accused the protesters of acting in concert and conspiring with the intention to destabilise the country, to commit a felony, to wit: treason, between July 1 and August 4, 2024.
Details later…
