HURMA petitions AGF, seeks probe of officials over trial of ACADIP founder, others

The Human Rights Monitoring Agenda (HURMA), a civil society, has urged the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, to investigate officials involved in an illegal trial of some persons without investigations by the police.

HURMA reported that the police filed an ex parte application for the withdrawal of the charges in December 2022, after realising the irregularities in the filing of the charges. The case, marked FHC/4421C/22 and named Federal Republic of Nigeria versus Muhammed Yahaya and six others, was before the trial judge Deinde Dipeolu of the Federal High Court, Lagos Division.

HURMA, in its petition dated 6 August and addressed to Mr Fagbemi, against police’s willingness to withdraw the charges based on the poor conduct of their officers, an Assistant Chief State Counsel in the AGF’s office, identified simply as T.A Mokuolu, had taken over the matter to continue prosecution. HURMA’s petition was signed by Lekan Alabi, a member of the organisation’s governing board and Principal Partner of Lekan Alabi Chambers in Lagos.

According to the petition, Mr Mokuolu appeared in the case on 3 March 2023 to continue the prosecution without the police. Subsequently, a private legal practitioner, Oladayo Ogungbe, also appeared in court to represent the AGF’s office, claiming he got a fiat from the office to pursue the prosecution on behalf of the office.

HURMA first raised the alarm concerning the case in a petition addressed to the office of the Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 2 in Lagos in 2022, alleging that some officers of the command filed the charge against seven persons including the President and Founder of the Academy of Islamic Propagation (ACADIP), Yusuf Adepoju, without inviting them for any investigation.

PREMIUM TIMES reported in 2022 that the police authorities in Zone 2 in Lagos punished an officer, identified as Onime Idowu, then an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), for reportedly ‘secretly’ filing the matter without following due process.

The then Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the command, Hauwa Idris, had told this newspaper at the time that Mr Idowu was detained for many days for engaging in what she described as a “grievous” conduct.

Mr Mokuolu, the lawyer from the AGF office, who allegedly attempted to continue prosecuting the case against the police’s move to withdraw it, declined to comment on the matter, claiming he is statutorily barred from speaking to the media as a public servant.

But Mr Ogungbe, the private lawyer claiming to have the fiat to prosecute the case, maintained that he has the mandate of the AGF office to diligently prosecute the case.

On his part, the spokesperson for the AGF, Kamarudeen Ogundele, promised to revert to PREMIUM as soon as he was able to review our reporter’s request.

Why police sought to withdraw charge

The police’s reasons for seeking to withdraw the charges are contained in an affidavit they filed in support of the ex parte application filed at the trial court in December 2022.

The affidavit dated 12 December 2022 and sworn to by Ahmed Kanike, an Assistant Superintendent of Police attached to Zone 2 Headquarters of the Nigeria police in Lagos disclosed that the former prosecutor handling the matter was redeployed based on the defendants’ complaints against him.

“That ASP Onime Idowu Esq is a counsel and an Assistant Superintendent of Police formerly attached to our Office at Onikan here in Lagos before his transfer to Ogun State Police Command last year; that his transfer was based on a Petition from the Defendants in this Charge No. FHC/L/421C/2021 who complained of shoddy investigation and lack of transparency in the prosecution of the charge,” the affidavit read in part.

The affidavit recalled that the case stemmed from a petition dated 6 October 2021 written by one Jamiu Adegunwa in Surulere, Lagos, ac one Muhammed Yahaya and Abdulhakeem Mudafari Kamaruorun of conspiracy, threat to life, impersonation, blackmail, cyberbullying and stalking, character assassination and demanding with menace, was investigated in our office.

However, it said, save for only one of the defendants, “all others were never invited for investigation nor their extra-judicial statements obtained before they were charged to this court in absentia.”

It added that a review of the complainant’s petition shows that the six defendants’ names were not mentioned in the heading as it ought to.

Another issue with the case, according to the affidavit, was that “the AIG Zone 2 did not direct nor approve the charge before this Honourable Court”.

It explained further that “there have been a series of Complaints to the Inspector-General of Police over the shoddy investigation and prosecution, hence the directive by the AIG Zone 2 Command, Onikan to withdraw the charge herein annexed as NPF 2 for proper investigation and prosecution.”

AGF’s office takes over case

Meanwhile, HURMA claimed that before the police could move the ex-parte motion for withdrawal of the case, Mr Mukuolu, on 3 March 2023, appeared before the former trial judge, I.N. Oweibo, to take over the case on behalf of the AGF.

Again, on 5 March 2024, the organisation said, Mr Ogungbe appeared before the new trial judge, Deinde Dipeolu, informing the court that he had the fiat of the AGF to prosecute the charge as a private prosecutor.

HURMA writes AGF

Dissatisfied with the alleged actions linked to the AGF office in respect of the matter HURMA in August submitted another petition at the office, saying “it does not see any legal justification for the prosecution of the defendants without any investigation by the police.”

The petition, which was received at the AGF’s office on 22 August, alleged that “some compromised members of staff in the Federal Ministry of Justice are hellbent in undermining the enormous power of the Attorney General by turning it to a weapon of vendetta against innocent citizens of this country.”

“We call on your revered office to investigate T.A. Mukuolu Esq., Assistant Chief State Counsel, about his role on who instructed him to take over the Charge on behalf of the office of the Attorney General and why a minister in the temple of justice could shut his eyes on the obvious facts stated on oath, by the police that the allegation of crime against the Defendants had not been investigated by them before the Charge was preferred,” the petition said.

The group called on the AGF “to investigate the procedure which Oladayo Ogungbe Esq. obtained a fiat to prosecute the Defendants without investigation by the police.”

It noted that, based on criminal jurisprudence across the world, investigation ought to first establish a prima facie case before the prosecution of a suspect.

“This elementary position of the law strengthens our view that Messrs T.A. Mukuolu Esq., Assistant Chief State Counsel and Oladayo Ogungbe Esq. are tools in the hands of one Ustaz Jamiu Adegunwa to unreasonably and embarrassingly exercise the prosecutorial power of your exalted office,” the petition said.

Prosecutor insists process fair

Speaking in a telephone interview with our reporter on Monday, the lawyer prosecuting on behalf of the AGF office, who is also the complainant’s counsel, Mr Ogungbe, said justified the filing of charges without police investigation.

He said his client had written petitions to the AGF’s office when they noticed alleged compromise on the part of the police and sought the takeover of the matter.

“In the Northern region, it is called direct criminal complaint, where a lawyer can file a direct criminal complaint without getting police involved if they can establish that the evidence in their possession is sufficient enough for prosecution,” he noted. “For instance, you insulted me in a video which is called criminal defamation in the north, that is enough to institute direct court trial.”

He also said such prosecution relying on video evidence can be undertaken based on section 24 of the Cybercrime Act.

Mr Ogungbe, however, said since the matter was still pending in court, the matter should be left to the court to decide.

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Background

The case was a fallout of a festering conflict between the President and Founder of ACADIP, Mr Adepoju, and another public religious comparative debater, Jamiu Adegunwa.

The police had confirmed that Mr Adegunwa wrote the petition against Mr Adepoju and the six others, accusing them of cyberbullying and cyberstalking, among other allegations.

Mr Adegunwa in 2022 also confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that he took the decision when he realised that Mr Adepoju and others charged were allegedly after his life.

He also did not deny asking the police to file the matter in court, noting that the police had the right to do so.