The trial of the former National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki and others in the $2.1billion charges of corruption, money laundering and breach of trust brought against them by the federal government has been adjourned to December 7, 2016.
Counsel to Dasuki, Ahmed Raji SAN, told journalists after the court failed to sit, that the adjourned was an agreement between all the counsels in the matter, and that the former NSA was not in court because he was still morning his father, former Sultan of Sokoto, Ibrahim Dasuki.
The trial of the two sets of charges being conducted by two high courts of the FCT judiciary had been consolidated into one, to be heard before Justice Husseini Baba Yusuf at the instance of the Chief Judge of the FCT, Justice Isaq Bello.
In one of the two sets of charges, Dasuki had been charged along with five others before Justice Peter Affen on 22-count charges.
Others who were charged before the Judge along with the former NSA with respect to charges of diversion of funds include a former Director of Finance in the Office of the NSA, Shuaibu Salisu, a former Finance Minister of State, Bashir Yuguda; a former Sokoto Governor, Attahiru Bafarawa, the ex-governor’s son, Sagir Attahiru, and a firm, Dalhatu Investment.
But in a motion brought pursuant to Section 6 and 36 of the 1999 Constitution and Section 1, 208, 396, 491 and 492 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, Dasuki had claimed that the two charges against him and others revolved around the same set of transaction and facts on the alleged funds misappropriation and the breach of trust.
He claimed that the two charges with NO FCT/HC/CR/43/2015 and another one with FCT/HC/CR/42/2015 pending before Justice Baba Yusuf of the High Court No 4 and Justice Peter Affen of High Court No 24 are identical charges emanating from the Office of the National Security Adviser and as such must be consolidated in
The applicant further claimed that to stand trial before two different courts and two different judges on the same set of facts and purported transaction of the office of the NSA will be prejudicial and great hardship against him as he stands the risk of double jeopardy having being charged in two different courts on the issue.
On why Dasuki did not visit his father at the hospital in Abuja, and his absence at the burial, Dasuki’s lawyer, Raji told newsmen that they never received any communication of such, availing him the opportunity to go for the father’s burial.
