The Supreme Court on Friday, May 8, overturned the judgment of a Federal High Court, which convicted Senate Chief Whip and former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu. According to the unanimous judgment of the Supreme Court delivered by Justice Ejembi Eko, the declaration of the judgment as a nullity was on the ground that Justice Mohammed Idris who delivered the judgment was already sworn in as a Justice of the Court of Appeal at the time and so could not act in the capacity of a judge of the High Court. The Supreme Court directed that the case be reassigned for trial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It will be recalled that in\nDecember 2019, after 12 years at trial, Kalu was convicted of fraud to the tune of N7.56bn and sentenced\nto 12 years imprisonment. Mr. Ude Udeogu, who had served as Director of Finance\nin the Abia State Government House during Kalu\u2019s administration as Governor of\nAbia State was also sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. However, with the\njudgment of the Supreme Court, Mr. Udeogu\u2019s conviction has also been set aside.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice Mohammed who was elevated\nto the Court of Appeal while he was yet to conclude the trial \nof the case, relied on section 396(7) of the Administration of Criminal\nJustice Act (ACJA) 2015, which provides for a judge of the High Court who has been elevated to the\nCourt of Appeal to continue to sit as a High Court judge for the purpose of\nconcluding partly-heard criminal matters\npending before him before his elevation, on the condition that it does not\nprevent him from assuming duty as a Justice of the appellate court. There are\narguments that the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to void the judgment in question\nconstitutes a technicality which defeats \nefforts made towards fighting corruption. However, some observers have countered\nto say that the provision of the ACJA is inconsistent with the Constitution of\nthe Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended). The Constitution provides\nfor the appointment of judicial officers, their powers and the jurisdiction of\neach court it establishes. While it does not expressly prohibit a judge of a\nHigh Court from concluding cases in that capacity after elevation to the Court\nof Appeal, the Supreme Court has interpreted the provisions of the Constitution\nto this effect. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Supreme Court on Friday, May 8, overturned the judgment of a Federal High Court, which convicted Senate Chief Whip and former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu. According to the unanimous judgment of the Supreme Court delivered by Justice Ejembi Eko, the declaration of the judgment as a nullity was on the ground […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-1398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-supreme-court-nullifies-corruption-trial-and-conviction-of-ex-governor-orji-uzor-kalu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1398"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1421,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions\/1421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}