Court Dismisses DSS Bid To Represent Rejected Exhibits Against Dasuki

Justice Peter Odo Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja has dismissed the request by the Department of the State Service, DSS, to represent for admission, series of exhibits earlier rejected by the court in the trial of former National Security Adviser NSA, Col. Sambo Dasuki on unlawful possession of firearms.

The judge on Tuesday dismissed the request while delivering ruling in the application to that effect made by the DSS lead lawyer, Oladipupo Okpeseyi, SAN.

Justice Lifu held that since the exhibits have been rejected and marked due to inappropriate foundation for their admission and lack of relevance to the charge, they stood and remained rejected.

The judge said that admitting them through the back door as requested by the prosecution would amount to judicial rascality and pettiness, which the court cannot afford to dabble into.

Similarly, Justice Lifu held that toeing the path of the prosecution would put his court in the dangerous position of sitting as Court of Appeal over his own decision.

Okpeseyi had at the September 25 proceedings applied to Justice Lifu to move the sitting of the court to the DSS Headquarters in Abuja for the purpose of inspecting some vehicles said to have been recovered in Dasuki’s house during a search in 2015 saying that the vehicles have been parked at the DSS headquarters in the past 10 years and should be inspected by the court for the purpose of admitting them as exhibits against Dasuki.

Apparently taken aback by the request, the Judge had requested to know the nature of the exhibits to be inspected at the DSS headquarters and in response, the DSS lawyer informed the Judge that they were those listed on the search warrant as items 18 to 28 and recovered from the Abuja house of the retired Army Officer.

When reminded that the exhibits have been rejected and marked rejected by the same court, the senior lawyer claimed that he has the right to represent them for the court to admit against the defendant.

While arguing on the application for representation of the rejected exhibits, Okpeseyi had cited several authorities adding that the exhibits were marked rejected in the previous proceedings because the foundation for tendering them for admission at that time was not properly laid.

He said he has now relaid the foundation and insisted that the exhibits were rejected merely on improper foundation for admission and not on their irrelevance to the trial and urged the court to grant his request.

However, in a vehement objection to the request, counsel to Dasuki, Mr A. A Usman had said that the application by Okpeseyi SAN was strange and unknown to law, adding that once an exhibit is rejected and marked by the court, such exhibit stands rejected.

Usman had submitted that Justice Peter Lifu, having taken a decision on the exhibits, cannot revisit the same exhibits and admit them through the back door reading out the earlier ruling of the Judge delivered on July 10 where it was clearly stated that the rejected exhibits have no relevance to the alleged unlawful possession of firearms and thus, failed the test of admissibility.

Dasuki’s lawyer argued that the only option open to the DSS was to go to the Court of Appeal to challenge the earlier rejection of the exhibits rather than inviting the same Judge to sit as an Appeal Court on the same matter hence pleaded with Justice Lifu to throw away the application as baseless, unwarranted and a ploy to draw the hand of the clock backward.

Garry Ochigbo, Edited By Grace Namiji