Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, who is currently the minority leader in the senate and who is also the principal surety to the Nnamdi Kanu, the IPOB leader, is set to apply for the refund of the N100million he had to forfeit to the federal government when Kanu jumped bail.
This was made known by one of his lawyers Maxwell Okpara, who stated that the legal team would take steps to apply for the refund.
You would recall that, Nnamdi Kanu, had jumped bail in 2019.
He has however since been rearrested and scheduled to appear in Federal High Court for continuation of his criminal trial on terrorism charges.
Senator Abaribe had to forfeit the huge amount because of his inability to produce Kanu in court to face the criminal trial, after several opportunities given to him.
He had however, during one of his appearances, prayed the court to hold the federal government responsible for Kanu’s escape and spare him the pain of forfeiting the bail bonds.
Abaribe had hinged his prayer on the fact that, Kanu had the opportunity to escape following an alleged invasion on his family house by armed military men.
The presiding Judge, Binta Nyako, had rejected Abaribe’s prayers and had ordered that, he should either forfeit the bail bonds or stand in place of the IPOB leader for criminal trial on terrorism and treasonable felony, punishable with either death or life imprisonment.
Abaribe had however opted for lesser punishment and thereafter forfeited the N100million bail bond.
Consequent upon Nnamdi Kanu’s rearrest, one of Abaribe lawyers, Maxwell Okpara has said, that they are backed by the law to apply for a refund of the forfeited sum for their client.
He said “It is a settled law that once an escapee defendant in a criminal matter is rearrested, the surety who forfeited bond must be refunded.”
He further stated that, “It does not matter whether the escapee accused person is rearrested by the surety or somebody else as in the instant matter. The bottom line is that our client must be refunded to the tune of N100M he had earlier forfeited in the course of the suretyship.”
He said they have set a July 26 date to begin the application process for the refund of the huge sum.
