By Elijah Ugani
A Magistrate court sitting in Calabar on Tuesday and presided over by Magistrate Rita Mashael has adjourned to May 30, 2018 its ruling on an application by the counsel to Mr. Ifere Paul to strike out the case brought before it by the Commissioner of Police.
The Police had charged Mr. Ifere Paul to court in 2017 after his arrest which his lawyers called a gestapo styled operation for allegedly sending threat messages to a former gubernatorial candidate of the defunct PPA, Mr. Godwin Akpama and inciting the public through Facebook.
But, after the first sitting which had Mr. Akpama and the prosecution counsel in attendance, four subsequent sittings have seen only Mr. Paul and his counsels including Mr. Utum Eteng and Akwaji DonHenry in attendance.
Barrister Utum Eteng told CrossRiverWatch after the sitting that: “My client was charged for frivolous reason, you can imagine his cousin Goddy Akpama who came here to adopt his statement, and was due for cross examination, but have since then refused to show up.”
When asked if he applied for the case to be strucked out, he averred that: “The Chief magistrate has just assumed office, the former one has retired and so she needs to understand the proceedings of the matter before taking appropriate decision on the matter.
“It is disheartening for my client to come from Abuja each time to be faced with this kind of challenge, they just want him to spend money as well as waste his time, we will be in court on the adjourned date, should this repeat itself, we will know what next to do.”
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