Questions, Anxiety As IGBOHO-12 Abuja High Court Presiding Judge Disappears As Bail Conditions Are Met

 Justice Obiora Egwuatu, the Abuja Federal High Court judge who is presiding over 12 detained associates of Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho has gone missing, just as all the bail conditions of the victims were met.

All the bail conditions of the 12 people ‘kidnapped’ and paraded before the World had been met and the legal team handling the matter was processing the release warrant, expected to be signed by the judge on Monday through Tuesday.

Sources close to the court revealed that the legal team had met all the bail conditions and as the leading lawyer handling the matter was about to present the documents to the judge’s office, it was discovered that the judge had disappeared. A source at the High Court in Abuja confided that the judge had travelled out of Abuja. It was however not revealed whether the judge travelled out of the country or travelled within Nigeria.

It had been established on Tuesday that all the 12 had met all the bail conditions as we learnt from a source at the court. They met all their bail conditions and by Wednesday, February 18, all were expected to have been released. 

A source claimed that all the detainees had been taken to the office of the judge only to be told that he had travelled and left instructions that no other judge must sign on his behalf. 

Two sureties had been attached to each of the detainees with all the 12 expected to get a total of 24 sureties. With the Federal government of Muhammadu Buhari making things more difficult for the detainees’ release, it has been established that Justice Egwuatu could be going through immense pressure to kowtow to the government orders influencing to make their release more difficult.

As all the conditions for the sureties were met last Friday, the bail office tightened that rope as they sought to verify the sureties address and confirm all the essentials attached to those who came forward as sureties, as the bail office also said it needed to write letters to the offices of the 24 sureties to get more confirmation of their supplied details

The Department of State Services (DSS) had arrested the 12 persons on July 1, 2021, during a raid on Igboho’s Ibadan residence around 1 am, killing two persons in the process. 

Lawyers on behalf of the 12 detained persons had approached the court to prove that 12 were illegally detained after they had been put under severe shock when the house in which they were resident was besieged by a combined team of Military men, Police and DSS, shelling the entire house with gun bullets and killing two of the residents and destroying Billions of worth property and carting away Igboho’s personal belongings. The lawyers had claimed the victims’ fundamental human rights as Nigerians had been infringed on.

The aides are Abdullateef Onaolapo, Tajudeen Irinloye, Dikeola Ademola,

Ayobami Donald, Uthman Adelabu, Olakunle Oluwapelumi, Raji Kazeem, and Taiwo Tajudeen; while the four aides are Amudat Babatunde (aka Lady K. Ifeoluwa), Abideen Shittu, Jamiu Oyetunji, and Bamidele Sunday.

Justice Egwuatu had on August 4, 2021, admitted the 12 applicants to bail.

So far, the 12 persons have spent about 52 days in DSS custody in Abuja.

In another development, the DSS last weekend through its lawyer, Idowu Awo filed a remand application, in which he is seeking the withdrawal of the current bail granted, asking the court to nullify the last proceedings on the ground of new evidence available, an action legal authorities had described as lacking in weight. Four of the 12 detained victims were said to be much on the DSS bail withdrawal list