Nigeria Content Online

A
Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, yesterday granted bail to Bayelsa
State’s Accountant General, Francis Okokuro, the Director of Treasury
in Government House, Abbot T. Clinton, and Director of Finance, Ikobho
Anthony Howells, over their alleged complicity in stealing N2.5 billion
belonging to the state government.

Presiding judge,
Daniel Okorowo, in his ruling on the bail application, held that the
offences for which the three accused persons are standing trial are
bailable and that granting of bail is subject to the discretion of the
court.

He further said
that to deny the accused persons bail at this stage would amount to
breaching the doctrine of presumption of innocence enshrined in the
country’s 1999 constitution.

To qualify for the
bail, the accused have to deposit N100million each in bail bond;
provide one surety each who must be an assistant director in the
Federal Civil Service with ownership of a landed property in Abuja. The
accused persons and their sureties are also to deposit two passport
photographs each, as well as their international passports to the court.

He ordered the
court’s Deputy Chief Registrar to verify the Certificate of Occupancy
deposited by the sureties, while the counsel to the accused is to write
a letter introducing the sureties to the Judge.

The men were
arraigned last week on a six-count charge of criminal conversion of
N2.5 billion public funds, to which the trio pleaded not guilty. The
court remanded them in prison custody, pending a decision on their bail
requests.

Illegal acts

In charge No.
FHC/ABJ/CS/55/2010 prepared by the commission’s chief legal officer,
Sylvanus Tahir, and filed by prosecution counsel Festus Keyamo, three
of the quartet were listed as accused persons, while the State
Commissioner of Finance, Charles Sylva Osuala, was said to be on the
run.

The commission had
also secured an order of the court to keep the three people in its
custody for two weeks. The men were arrested last week in Yenagoa and
moved to Abuja.

The charge reads, in part, that “you, Francis Okokuro, Abbot T.
Clinton, Ikobho Anthony Howells, and Charles Sylva Osuala (now at
large) sometime between October 2009 and February 2010, at various
places in Nigeria, including Abuja, within the jurisdiction of the
Federal High Court, did conspire to commit a crime; to wit: conversion
of properties and resources amounting to N2billion, belonging to
Bayelsa State government and derived from an illegal act, with the aim
of concealing the illicit origin of the said amount and you thereby
committed an offence contrary to Section 17(a) of the Money Laundering
(Prohibition Act), 2004 and punishable under Section 14(1) of the same
Act.”