[size=15pt]US-based Nigerian expert rots in Agodi Prison[/size]

By Sam Nwaoko - 17.08.2008

So much is locked behind the high walls of the prison yards around the country. Many of the inmates are justifiably there; many others are serving terms following awkward, jejune cases while so many others have no business being imprisoned or in prison detention. A recent visit to the Agodi Prisons in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, in the entourage of the state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Michael Folorunsho Lana, afforded the Sunday Tribune an opportunity to see beyond the high incarceration walls. The visit highlighted the urgent need for an unembroidered catharsis in Nigeria’s justice delivery system.


Mr. Lana led a team of other officials of the Oyo State Ministry of Justice on a fact finding cum technical assessment visit to the prison on the instruction of the governor, Chief Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala. He said the prison authorities had written to the governor for assistance over the inadequacy of facilities in the prison.


On the other hand, he said the body of attorneys general in the country, at a recent meeting, decided that members should visit the various prisons in their states to determine what are wrong and how to tackle them.


Beyond the aged and inadequate but fit physical structures seen in the prison yard, Governor Akala’s representative found that many Nigerians are needlessly undergoing emotional torture behind bars in the cold confines of Agodi Prisons. The case of United States-based Public Health expert, Dr. Timothy Agunbiade, caught special attention.


Dr Agunbiade’s tale left the commissioner, Mr. Lana and his entourage in awe and in obvious lament over the tacky justice delivery system in the country. The medical expert, who has been practicing in the United States since 1983, told Sunday Tribune that he had been in prison detention since July 3, 2008 following inexplicable orders of Justice R.N. Ofili-Ajumogobia of the Federal High Court, Ibadan.


According to the Ilesa, Osun State-born Agunbiade, he became a detainee after he was arrested in his home in Lagos by policemen from Ibadan, following a report by his friend that he allegedly imported fake drugs into the country. The drugs in question, Agunbuade said, were genuine and were imported legitimately by him from the United States. “The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) even tested and certified the drugs to be genuine.”


He believes his travails began “when a friend of mine also based in the US felt he should have been the one importing the drugs. He threatened to ‘show me’ and I didn’t know how until policemen came from Ibadan and arrested me on allegations that I was distributing fake drugs in Oyo Sate.


“I told the policemen that the drugs had been certified by NAFDAC and were already in the market in Lagos, but they said Oyo is different from Lagos.”


However, he was arraigned on a lone count charge of distributing “for the purpose of sale of fake and (or) expired drugs in the name of “MV365 and MVS PRE-NATAL” and thereby alleged to have committed an offence contrary to Section 1 and punishable under section 3(1) (A) of Counterfeit and Fake Drug and Unwholesome Processed Food Miscellaneous (Provision) Act Cap 34, Laws of the Federation of Nigerian 2004, on the 14th of November, 2007.”


The case came before Justice Molokwu who admitted Dr Agunbiade to bail. At the next hearing date which was January 18, 2008, he said he made himself available in court “and the court accordingly ordered the prosecution to assemble their witnesses against the 26th of February, 2008 which was the date fixed for the hearing of the case.” On the hearing date, he said he also made himself available in court but the case could not proceed to trial and was adjourned to March 5, 2008.


On March 5, Dr Agunbiade was in court again, but neither the counsel for the prosecution nor any representative of the complainant was in court and this caused the case to be adjourned to March 16, by which time Justice Molokwu had been transferred. The new judge, Mrs. R.N. Ofili-Ajumogobia, adjourned the case to May 9 before the arrival of any of the parties and counsels in the matter. On May 9, the court did not sit and the registrar fixed June 19 for the case on the agreement of the parties in the case. His counsel, Bolaji Faboro, told ST that he could not make it to court on June 19 but he sent Micheal Agbolade “since I believed that it was just to take a date.”


June 19 was the first time Dr Agunbiade would appear before Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia. Then, the prosecution stated its intention to withdraw the case following its amicable resolution among the parties. Agunbiade said this drew the ire of the judge who, he said “condemned the prosecution counsel for making such an application before her.”


At the hearing of that June 19, Agunbiade claimed that the judge insisted that if the counsels failed to agree to a date that did not exceed June 24, she was going to revoke his bail.

“Both counsels in the matter then reluctantly agreed to come back for the case on June 24,” he said. He said he became worried over what he described as the open hostility of Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia towards him. On June 24, all the parties were shocked to find that the judge was not present in court despite the threats of bail revocation five days earlier.


The absence of the judge made the counsels to choose September 22, 2008 which was the agreeable date to the registrar, Faboro,who had informed them of the annual judges’ vacation.


Agunbiade said he was greatly surprised when his counsel called him late on July 2 that there was a hearing notice issued on July 1, served him (the counsel) on July 2, that the trial of his case had been fixed for July 3, the next day. The hearing notice, he observed, was served by the court clerk, and not the usual bailiff. He made it to court early against all odds on July 3 from Lagos.


In the middle of the hearing on July 3, Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia stopped the cross-examination going on and without any prompting by any of the counsels, said she was tired and would like the case adjourned and she fixed July 30 for the next date. But beyond this, she revoked Dr. Agunbiade’s bail and ordered that he be remanded in Agodi Prison without adducing any reason for revoking the bail.


The puzzled lawyers could not question her and the man was thrown in jail. “Up till the time the judge decided to revoke my bail, I have not done anything to warrant the decision to cut my bail. I have therefore been tried and remanded in the prison custody by the judge when my plea has not even been taken before her,” Dr Agunbiade cried. He said this was so because the judge threatened to report the prosecution counsel to the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the police authorities for daring to apply before her to take pleas since being a new judge in the case.


Efforts to get Dr Agunbaide bail so far on health grounds had been thwarted for puerile logistics reasons. Faboro told Sunday Tribune that already, even the prosecution had found that the case was that of alleged trademark infringement, which he said was a civil case, and not a criminal case for which his counsel is being detained. “I have gone to seek the case file since the judge told us that she wanted to seek advice whether she should continue with the case or not but we were told that the file had not got to them in Lagos, ” Faboro said. The file too cannot be retrieved in Ibadan, neither could the counsel get certified true copies of nor the record of proceedings nor the ruling in the case. The question now is whether the judge had taken the case file with her to her vacation.


So, while Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia is somewhere enjoying her well-deserved rest of her annual vacation, Agunbiade, a member of the New York Academy of Science that responded to the Federal Government’s call to come home and invest, is wasting away in prison detention.


Mr. Lana did not see Agunbiade’s suffering and that of many others in Agodi prisons as trivial and, accordingly, felt the obvious manipulation of justice to their detriment should be halted. He promised to look more into the matter and also do something about it. He said as much about the other prisoners who are serving terms based on trifling offences.


“Some of the prisoners were tricked into conviction and we have to look into it. Some of them are not supposed to be there, they should have been reprimanded or fined. Our justice system is not okay and something must be done fast,” Lana said.

source:http://www.tribune.com.ng/17082008/news/news3.html

What a weird judicial system we practice in this country. Best brains are allowed to rot in jail on lame excuses. What a shame!!

Well its a case of 2 US based people fighting it out in Nigeria; what a shame?

Hmm