The Federal High Court in Abuja has voided the indictment of two former governors of Bauchi State over alleged misappropriation of the state’s assets estimated at N321.5 billion.

Justice Inyang Ekwo declared the state’s Assets and Funds Recovery Committee, set up by Governor Bala Mohammed to probe the former governors, Isa Yuguda and Mohammed Abubakar, as unlawful and proceeded to restrain the state from acting on the committee’s report to prosecute the duo.

The court, in the suit FHC/ABJ/CS/460/2020 filed by Abubakar and Yuguda, held: “Without evidence of the executive instrument or order of the fifth defendant (Bauchi State Government), which established the committee, it means that the fifth defendant has not effectively controverted the assertion of the plaintiffs.

“Further, since the executive instrument is in the possession of the fifth defendant and it failed or refused to produce it in either the counter affidavit or further counter-affidavit, it, in my opinion, means that it is being withheld by the fifth defendant.”

According to the judge, in the country’s legal system, parties are to present their case comprehensively by stating the facts and evidence wholly, irrespective of whether such fact or evidence is against their interest.

He concluded: “The fifth defendant has admitted the case of the plaintiffs by not controverting same with credible evidence. Therefore, the recommendation of the committee of the fifth defendant, which means of establishment has been discredited by the plaintiffs, cannot be allowed to stand and I so hold.”

The judge proceeded to declare that the Bauchi government and security agencies, named in the case, lacked the “power or authority to initiate or cause to be instituted any investigation against the plaintiffs or their administrations as governors of Bauchi or prosecute/arraign them” based on the committee’s report when they were neither heard nor afforded an opportunity to be heard by the committee.

Other defendants in the case are the Department of State Services (DSS), Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)‎.

The two former governors, who served between 2007 and 2019, claimed, among others, that not only was the committee set up by the incumbent governor under a repealed law, it was intended to rubbish their reputation.

They added that the committee sat and conducted its businesses, without hearing from them, thereby denying them the right to a fair hearing, guaranteed under Section 36(1) of the Constitution.

“Among the several spurious allegations against the plaintiffs by the committee is that their administrations as governors of Bauchi wasted a staggering N321,460,759,880.34 purportedly being the statutory allocations to the state between May 2015 and May 2019,” the plaintiff counsel added.