Yunusa Dahiru, the young man accused of abducting 14-year Ese Oruru, a Delta State indigene based in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, finally left custody at the weekend after spending over four months in Okaka Prisons in the state capital.
A reliable source said that Dahiru was immediately taken to Kano, where he hails from, in company of a team of his defence lawyers who usually fly into the state during court sittings.
It was learnt that contrary to insinuations that no Bayelsa indigene would be willing to stand surety for the accused because of the ethnic and religious sentiments the case seemed to have elicited, the person who eventually fulfilled the court condition was from the state.
Dahiru’s team of lawyers had battled since March this year to free their client from prison but without success following the stringent bail conditions given by Justice Ajiya Nganjiwa of the Federal High Court in Yenagoa.
Justice Nganjiwa had set a N3 million bail bond and two sureties in like sum, resident within the jurisdiction of the court as conditions for Dahiru’s release.
He had also ordered that one of the sureties must be a traditional title holder, while the second person must be a civil servant on Grade Level 12 or above.
The bail conditions also stipulated that the two sureties must submit their three-year tax clearance receipts and that the defence counsel must sign an undertaking that the accused would not jump bail.
However, the Judge later relaxed the conditions after he was approached by Yunusa’s lawyers that they could not meet some of the requirements.
The court reduced the bail conditions to a level nine civil servant and further granted the prayer of the defendant to also allow any traditional ruler from any community in the country to stand as surety.
Many of the court sessions to hear the case had recently been done in camera (private), after the judge granted the Prosecution team’s prayer that Miss Oruru should be cross-examined away from the glare of journalists and members of the public.
But a source privy to the private court proceedings, when asked how Miss Oruru had been reacting to seeing Dahiru in the same chambers during sessions, noted that ‘she has been very antagonistic’.
More to follow
(Thisday)
