A Bauchi Upper Shari’a court on Wednesday, issued a warrant of arrest against an Islamic Cleric in the state, Chief Imam of Dutsen Tanshi Juma’at mosque, Idris Abdul’azeez Dutsen Tanshi over his refusal to appear in the court for the continuation of the charge against him.
The Court during its sitting presided over by the Sharia Judge, Malam Hussaini A. Turaki, did not agree with the submission made by the Counsel to the accused person urging the Court to consider the order of the Court of Appeal in Jos on the matter.
The presiding Judge, after hearing the arguments from both Counsels, gave a ruling that the accused person must appear before the Court despite the bail granted to him ealier and the presence of his two sureties during the sitting, since it was a criminal case he is standing trial of before the court.
The Prosecution Counsel, UB Umar of the State Ministry of Justice, shortly after the proceeding at the court, explained further, that the Court or the prosecutors counsel are not the ones to move the motion for the accused person which they failed to do so
According to him, “We have sent sammons for him, publicly he made mentioned he won’t come, we changed summon to substitute the service and to be pested on the last known address of the accused person which the Court did for him to come, there is a motion which his Counsel filed, it has not been moved, just to hear what the Court will rule.”
He added that, “So, we cannot allow the motion to be staying unattended to, they withdrew it and the court didn’t know, the court cannot act on speculations, so the court stood by its summon and substitute service issued.”
The Counsel added that, “The court ordered that he should come to the court and tell it why he would not come before it, in its previous sitting, if there are reasons enough to convince the court, fine, the next time, we would know what to do.”
UB Umar stressed that, “We sent summons, he refused, we sent substitute service, he refused, then the next is arrest warrant by the security agents to arrest him and bring him to the court, that is by next week, 24th of this month, not wanted but warrant to arrest him.”
“It will not be wanted until that warrant has not been executed then, we declare him wanted” he noted.
On the other side, the Counsel to the accused, Ahmad M Umar remained adamant that despite the arrest warrant issued earlier, the Upper Shari’a Court has to respect the last order given by the Appeal Court in Jos before any other matter.
According to him, “We reminded the Court also, that the Court revoked the bail granted to the accused person erroneously, they did it in error, because the principle is that, after serving a motion to the accused person, and if he is not found, the court has to resume sitting and inform that the accused person has not being served, the substitution had to be applied for, but the Court served the summon on him and he travelled.”
He added that,”We also reminded the Court that, this case was from here to High Court and the Court of Appeal in Jos. We served this court and other parties with four notices of hearing, but due to the fact that was there were special sitting on governorship elections, the Court of Appeal was unable to sit on the matter.”
“Now, the Court of Appeal gave a date and we told the Court t out of respect that they should respect the status of the Court of Appeal, and should not do anything and now they went and revoked the bail and ordered to arrest him,” he added.
Ahmed Umar declared that, “Our stand is that, there is a pending case before the Court of Appeal, the court did not listen, and still decided to arrest him which is actually wrong according to the law and all the norms of the civil society, we have phoned him and we will continue to do the needful.”
He added that, “We are doing everything to see that the Court should obey the higher Court, we are talking about Court of Appeal, even a High Court cannot continue with this matter, even Federal High Court, but the Court, in its own opinion is continuing with the matter.”
But, according to the Upper Shari’a Court, the case was adjourned until the 24th of January 2023 for the continuation of the hearing with the accused person in court
It could be recalled that the State Police Commissioner arraigned the accused, Imam Idris Abdul’azeez on the offence of incitement of public disturbance which the Upper Shari’a court entertained in its previous proceedings sometimes last year.
