THE FEDERAL High Court in Abuja yesterday ordered the Department of State Service, DSS, to produce former Governor of Benue State, Dr. Gabriel Suswam, who has been in detention since February 25, in court on May 11. Trial Justice Gabriel Kolawole directed that a copy of the order should be served on the Director General of the DSS, Mr. Lawal Daura. The order followed refusal of the security agency to produce Suswam in court to be arraigned on a 32-count fraud and money laundering charge the Federal Government instituted against him and two others. Other defendants in the charge marked FHC/ABJ/CR/48/2017, and endorsed by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, are a former Commissioner of Finance in Benue State under Suswam’s administration, Mr. Omadachi Oklobia, and the then accountant of Benue State Government House Administration, Mrs. Janet Aluga. The defendants were accused of diverting the sum of N9,791,602,453.8, part of which was meant for police reform programme, Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE-P. Federal Government said it had upon an investigation that was conducted by the Police, uncovered that the fund was diverted between 2012 and 2015 when Suswam was the governor of Benue State. Meanwhile, refusal of the DSS to produce the Suswam who is the first defendant yesterday stalled arraignment of the defendants. The prosecution counsel, Mr. Aminu Alilu, told the court that he was surprised that the defendant was not brought to court. Alilu, who noted that Suswam was earlier granted administrative bail by the police, said a letter was sent to the DSS notifying it of the planned arraignment. He said the letter was duly acknowledged by the Service. Nevertheless, the prosecution equally told the court that Suswam also declined to accept a copy of the charge that was served on him at the DSS detention centre. “My lord, when we went to serve him the process and it was discovered that he is in DSS custody. We then made effort to serve the defendant the charge there in accordance with section 2(3) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA. “My lord our effort failed as the 1st defendant refused service. Consequently, we served the process on his counsel in compliance with section 379(3) of the ACJA”, Alilu submitted. He prayed the court to, in line with section 87 of the ACJA, exercise it powers and order the 1st defendant to
accept the charge. “My lord we deposed an affidavit on April 10 to show that the defendant refused to accept the charge,” the prosecution added. Meanwhile, one of Suswam’s lawyers, Mr. Adebayo Adedeji, said his appearance in the matter was in protest. Adedeji told the court that two Police officers came to his chambers around 2pm on Monday and sought to serve him a copy of the charge. “My lord it was out of respect to this court that we received the process in protest. Our contention is that being an Originating Process, it ought to be served personally on the defendant.