Alleged N423 Billion Fraud: El-Rufai seeks transfer of case, accuses judge of bias

Former Governor Nasir El-Rufai has petitioned the Federal High Court accusing a judge, Rilwanu Aikawa, of bias in a case he filed against the state government and state House of Assembly.

Mr El-Rufai sued the two bodies for alleged infringement of his rights while investigating alleged financial management by his administration between 2015 and 2023.

He asked the Federal High Court to declare unconstitutional the report of the state assembly indicting him of mismanaging about N423 billion from loans obtained by his administration.

The former governor on Thursday, in the petition sent through his counsel, Adetayo Adeyemi, to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, John Tsoho, alleged gross bias, injustice and denial of fair hearing.

Mr El-Rufai asked the chief judge to transfer the fundamental human rights suit marked FHC/KD/CS/55/2024, which is before Justice Aikawa, to another judge in the interest of justice.

The former governor said after the suit was filed on June 26, 2024, the court proceeded to fix July 8 for a hearing of the matter.

Stating the ground for the petition, Mr El-Rufai said at the commencement of the hearing, hiß counsel, S.S Umoru, informed the court that all parties in the suit had been served and were still within time to file their responses.

Mr El-Rufai said the first respondent’s counsel, Sule Shaibu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), however, told the court that they had not filed their response and were out of time to do so by one day.

He said the matter was subsequently adjourned till 17 July and his (El-Rufai) principal counsel, A.U Mustapha also a (SAN), who had travelled from Lagos to Kaduna to represent him in the matter, was told the court would not be sitting and as a result proceeded back to Lagos.

“On the night of July 17, we got the information in the news that the matter was fixed for July 18,” he said, in the petition.

Mr El-Rufai added that given the extremely short notice, they filed for an adjournment in court and served the court and all the parties in the suit.

However, he alleged that despite the letter of adjournment, the court presided over the matter the next day without putting the applicant on notice.

Mr El-Rufai said the respondents adopted their processes and participated further in the matter without the attendance and appearance of the applicant.

He alleged that this act “smacks of extreme bias, injustice and denial of fair hearing against the applicant”.

“The applicant was not put on notice for the proceedings of July 18 2024, as expressly explained in the letter of adjournment. We only got a whiff of the hearing on the night of July 17, which is an extremely short time for us to appear in court. Service of hearing in a matter is sacrosanct and our courts have held severally that every party must be put on notice before his case can be heard.

“In view of the foregoing, we humbly apply for the transfer of this matter from the trial court presided over by honourable Justice R.M Aikawa whereby the relevant applications can be heard as the applicant has lost all confidence in the judge to continue to hear and determine the matter. Justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done.

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“Having expressly refused to put the applicant on notice before hearing the matter and proceeding to hear same when the applicant was still within time, to respond to the 1st respondent application, the average man on the street could see which way the judge is headed,” Mr El-Rufa’i said in the petition

The former governor also alleged he was not given the opportunity to respond to the first respondent’s counter-affidavit and written address.