{"id":5597,"date":"2025-07-17T20:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T20:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/?p=5597"},"modified":"2025-07-17T20:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T20:33:11","slug":"court-rejects-yahaya-bellos-request-for-medical-trip-amid-ongoing-n110-4bn-fraud-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/2025\/07\/17\/court-rejects-yahaya-bellos-request-for-medical-trip-amid-ongoing-n110-4bn-fraud-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Court rejects Yahaya Bello\u2019s request for medical trip amid ongoing N110.4bn fraud trial"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Our Correspondent<\/div>\n
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The Federal High Court Abuja has denied former governor Yahaya Bello’s request for medical trip amid ongoing N110.4bn fraud trial<\/div>\n
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Justice Maryanne Anineh, on Thursday, struck out Bello\u2019s application seeking the release of his passport to enable him travel to the United Kingdom for medical reasons.<\/div>\n
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Bello is standing trial alongside Umar Shuaibu Oricha and Abdulsalami Hudu on a 16-count charge brought against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), bordering on alleged criminal breach of trust and money laundering involving N110.4 billion.<\/div>\n
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The former governor, through his lawyer, J.B. Daudu, SAN, had filed the application on June 20, 2025, requesting temporary access to his passport to attend a medical appointment in the UK.<\/div>\n
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He also pledged to return the document to the court upon his return.<\/div>\n
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However, the EFCC, represented by Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chukwudi Enebeli, opposed the motion, arguing that granting the request would amount to altering the bail conditions, which required Bello to deposit his passport with the court.<\/div>\n
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Enebeli also contended that the defendant\u2019s sureties had not been notified of the development, which could have implications for their standing as guarantors.<\/div>\n
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In addition, the EFCC accused Bello of abusing court processes by filing a similar application in another court while the present one was still under consideration.<\/div>\n
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The prosecution warned that such duplicity could lead to conflicting judicial orders.<\/div>\n
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\u201cThe proper thing would have been for the defendant to retrieve his passport from the other court and then apply for a travel permit before this court.<\/div>\n
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\u201cAsking both courts to release the same passport at the same time creates the risk of conflicting orders, which is an abuse of process”, Enebeli argued.<\/div>\n
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At Thursday\u2019s sitting, prosecution counsel Jami\u2019u Agburo confirmed that the matter was scheduled for ruling and that the prosecution was fully prepared.<\/div>\n
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Delivering her ruling, Justice Anineh stated that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the application because the passport in question was not in its custody.<\/div>\n
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\u201cA review of the court\u2019s record revealed that the applicant had previously been ordered to deposit his passport and other travel documents with the registry of this court.<\/div>\n
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“However, it was discovered that the said passport is actually with the Federal High Court,\u201d she noted.<\/div>\n
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Citing an affidavit personally deposed to by Bello confirming that the passport was deposited with the Federal High Court, Justice Anineh concluded that making any order regarding its release would be futile.<\/div>\n
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\u201cThe simple logic is that the passport cannot be with two different courts at the same time.<\/div>\n
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Since the defendant admitted depositing the passport with the Federal High Court, there is no reason making any order here. Courts don\u2019t make orders in vain”, she ruled.<\/div>\n
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Justice Anineh subsequently adjourned the matter to October 8, 9, and November 13, 2025, for continuation of trial.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Our Correspondent The Federal High Court Abuja has denied former governor Yahaya Bello’s request for medical trip amid ongoing N110.4bn fraud trial Justice Maryanne Anineh, on Thursday, struck out Bello\u2019s application seeking the release of his passport to enable him travel to the United Kingdom for medical reasons. Bello is standing trial alongside Umar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1826,3633,1846,1611,1488,3634,2503],"class_list":["post-5597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-crime","tag-adjourned","tag-admitted","tag-application","tag-continuation","tag-defendant","tag-depositing","tag-subsequently"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5598,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5597\/revisions\/5598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}