Bankole, Nafada Get Bail With Stringent Conditions

Embattled former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole and his deputy, Mr. Usman Nafada who are standing trial before Justice Suleiman Belgore of an Abuja High Court on allegations of conspiracy and criminal breach of trust, were on Thursday granted bail by the court.

However, the joy of the temporary relief which the bail would have brought the way of the accused persons were sapped by the conditions the trial judge attached to their bail.

They were granted by in the sum of N50 million each with two sureties each in like sum. The court ordered that the sureties are to be civil servants who must not be below the status of a Permanent Secretary and must reside within the Federal capital city.

One of the lawyers representing Bankole and Nafada, Mr. Tayo Oyetibo, a senior advocate of Nigeria, pleaded with the court for variation in the status of permanent secrtary and to accept sureties who are civil servants of a particular grade level rather than a Perm Sec which he said would be difficult to get.

The court declined the oral application for variation of the bail condition.

The court stated that it reached the decision having considered the severity of the offence for which Bankole and his former deputy were standing trial.

Further pleading from Mr. Oyetibo that appears as though the court is giving bail with the right hand and withdrawing it with the left hand and making it practically impossible for his clients to enjoy the bail which the court had granted to them, failed to elicit a change of heart from the judge who insisted that he had delivered his ruling on the issue.

Supporters of Bankole and Nafada who had thronged the court to celebrate the possible release of the duo as well as the accused persons wore long faces as it dawned on them that the end of their stay in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, may not be over any time soon.

The legal team of the accused persons quickly went into a meeting as they plotted on how to file a formal application for variation of bail condition before the court as soon as possible. The snag here, however, is that they must search for Permanent Secretaries first before coming to court for variation and this means that the duo will have to remain in the custody of EFCC pending when such variation can be granted by the court.

Bankole and Nafada were alleged to have used the accounts of the House of Representatives to acquire loans totalling N38 billion from two commercial banks, thereby breaching some laws in the process.

They allegedly got the loan to pay the jumbo remuneration to members of the House outside what had been prescribed by the appropriate authority.