DCP Abba Kyari and three other police officers who have been placed on administrative leave filed a petition to have the criminal charges brought against them thrown out. The decision on the petition has been postponed until March 22.
After hearing arguments in favour of and against the application from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency's (NDLEA) attorney, Joseph Sunday, and the defence attorneys, Justice Emeka Nwite of a Federal High Court in Abuja set the date.
According to Prime 9ja Online (P9O), Kyari, the first defendant, and four other members of the Intelligence Response Team have been charged with crimes by the NDLEA (IRT).
They are the second through fifth accused, and they are ACP Sunday Ubia, ASP Bawa James, Insp. Simon Agirigba, and Insp. John Nuhu.
The police officers were accused of smuggling cocaine into the country from Ethiopia through Akanu Ibian International Airport, Enugu, along with Emeka Alphonsus Ezenwanne and Chibunna Patrick Umeibe, who was also detained by IRT officers.
The five officers pled not guilty to the accusations brought against them, despite the fact that Ezenwanne and Umeibe were found guilty and given a two-year prison sentence after entering guilty pleas to the three counts the NDLEA had preferred against them.
In new applications on notice submitted by their attorneys, Kyari, Ubia, Agirigba, and Nuhu asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit against them on the grounds that they were incompetent.
Through their legal team, which included Hamza N'Dantani and was headed by Nureni Jimoh, SAN, the applicants pleaded with the court to halt their trial because, as required by the constitution, they had not been subjected to the internal disciplinary action of the Nigeria Police Council (NPC) and the Police Service Commission (PSC).
Jimoh contended that the complaint (NDLEA) was defective because the complainant failed to wait for the disciplinary action to be taken against them, depriving the court of jurisdiction to hear the complaint.
He made the case that the applicants should be subject to disciplinary measures by the NPC and PSC with the authority to examine these alleged offences committed in the course of the applicants' duties because they were now employed as police officers by the Nigeria Police Force.
The senior attorney claims that before the petitioners may be accused by any other security agent or agency, internal disciplinary action taken by the Nigeria Police Council and Police Service Commission in accordance with the constitution against them is a must.
He claimed that despite the fact that the NPC and PSC had started their disciplinary proceedings in earnest and that the applicants had previously responded to questions from the police authority before this accusation was brought against them, the charge incorrectly ended the disciplinary process.
He claimed that because the officers were being held by the NDLEA, they could not be tried by the Force Disciplinary Committee.
Jimoh claimed that the police letter—exhibited as NDLEA 1 by the anti-drug agency—was actually a letter from an assistant inspector general (AIG) of police to the inspector general (I-G), not the NDLEA.
“It is an administrative procedure of the police. The NDLEA only went and hijacked it,” he said.
According to him, the disciplinary power of the PSC cannot be shared with anybody or any agency, including the NDLEA.
He urged the court to hold the charge as being premature and grant their application.
But the NDLEA counsel, Mr Sunday, opposed the application.
He argued that most of the cases cited by the senior lawyer did not relate to Police Service Act, saying the instant charge against the defendant was a criminal matter.
He submitted that the defendants through their applications had not, by way of affidavit or legal argument, established any condition precedence required for the filing of this charge.
“To that extent, their application must fail and be bereft of any factual evidence,” he said.
Sunday urged the court to dismiss the application and proceed to the hearing of the matter.
Justice Nwite consequently adjourned the matter until March 22 for a ruling.
P9O reports that Insp. Bawa James, who was the 3rd defendant in the suit, did not file any application in this regard.