The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Tuesday, admitted a former governor of Imo State, Senator Rochas Okorocha, to bail. Okorocha and his co-defendant, Anyim Nyerere, on Monday, pleaded not guilty to allegations of stealing N2.9 billion public funds while the former was in office.
Subsequently, the defendants filed their separate bail requests. Mr Okorocha’s lawyer, Solomon Umoh, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), while arguing the bail application, begged the judge, Inyang Ekwo, to admit his client to bail on “liberal terms.”
He contended that it was within Mr Okorocha’s “constitutional right” to be granted based on the doctrine of “presumption of innocence.”
The (bail) applicant (Mr Okorocha) has been a man known in this society, therefore, the prosecution’s (EFCC) contention that he could not be served with the charge is not true as he could have been served through subbstituted means,” Mr Umoh told the judge. The defence lawyer asked the judge to admit Mr Okorocha to bail on self-recognisance. “We beg the court that the applicant be admitted to bail on liberal terms.”
Similarly, Mr Nyerere through his lawyer, Oba Maduabuchi, asked the court to admit him to bail based on the earlier administrative bail granted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). “There is no day that he (Mr Nyerere) was requested to come to court that he did not come,” Mr Maduabuchi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), told the court.
