Chief Magistrate Probed For Delaying GMB’s Certificate Case

A chief magistrate in Abuja, Abubakar Babashani is set to be probed after he allegedly delayed beginning a hearing on the perjury charge brought against the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gen Muhammadu Buhari (rtd).

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The Trent reports that the Chief Justice of Nigeria, (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed, has ordered an investigation into a petition filed against the magistrate, even as the CJN has directed the magistrate to file his response to the petition entitled “Case of Abuse of Office and Manifest Bias by His Worship, Abubakar Babashani, in The Criminal Complaint by Shield Jones Ufot & Ors. Vs. Muhammed Buhari.”

Responding to the petition, the CJN via a letter,  signed by his senior special assistant, Hadiza Sa’eed, with reference no: CJN/MAN/B9/S.1/VOL.VI/389, said he would give due consideration to all the allegations that were leveled against the magistrate in the complaint letter dated February 4, 2015.

Four activists, including Shield Jones Ufot, Jimmy David, Ogueri Enwerem and Tochukwu Okorie, filed a direct criminal complaint before the Abuja Chief Magistrate Court accusing Buhari of violating section 157 of the Penal Code.

According to Vanguard, in the suit they filed pursuant to sections 143 (d) and 152 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the plaintiffs alleged that Buhari relied on a bogus certificate to depose an affidavit before a competent court, an action they said amounted to perjury and punishable under section 158 of the Penal Code Law.

In the petition filed through their layer, Ugochukwu Ezekiel, the plaintiffs stated that despite filing the criminal complaint and paying all the necessary fees, the Chief Magistrate “refused to give directives as required of him by law either for the Police to investigate and report back to the court, assign the matter to another Magistrate or proceed to hear the matter.”

Meanwhile, Buhari has revealed that he would inherit a huge debt profile and empty treasury if he is elected president.

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