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…Court fixes June 9 to hear bail application
…As her accomplice gets N100m bail
From: TONY JOHN, Port Harcourt
Former Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in Rivers State, Dame Gesila Khan, was arraigned, on Wednesday, before Justice Sailu Saidu, of the Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt.
Dame Khan was being tried by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), for allegedly obtaining a gratification to the tune of over N180 million from yet to be named person(s), while serving as the State REC, during the 2015 general elections.
This was as the Court has fixed Friday, June 9, to hear submissions on the bail application of the embattled former Rivers REC, who has been under investigation for several months, by the anti-graft agency.
The trial Judge, Justice Saidu, adjourned till Friday, for hearing, saying that her (Khan) application was not yet ripe for hearing.
She was represented in court by her counsel, Mr. S. Larry, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
Khan was arrested by the anti-graft czar in 2015, and detained in its South-South cell for several months.
She was later granted administrative bail, but was, however, picked up from her Bayelsa home town by EFCC operatives on June 4, and charged to Court after conducting “thorough investigations”.
The Court, however, ordered that she should remain in the custody of the EFCC till the next adjourned date, though the anti-graft agency opposed to the decision of the court.
She was arraigned alongside one Peter Popnin, a former INEC staff, who allegedly assisted her in receiving the said gratification.
Popnin, however, was granted bail in the sum of N100 million with two sureties., one of who must be resident in the State and owns a landed property of like sum within Port Harcourt.
The second person must be a civil servant of not lower than grade 15, in either the State or Federal Civil Service.
Other bail conditions were, the two sureties must produce two passport photographs and swear an affidavit of means. The Court Registrar has to verify the sureties before he would be allowed to proceed home.
Also, the defendant, Popnin, should submit his International Passport to the Court Registrar.
