Daily Times Owners Petition NBA, NJC Over Keyamo’s Court Appearance For Police

The management of Folio Communications Plc, publishers of Daily Times newspapers have written petitions to the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) and the National Judicial Council (NJC) over the appearance of Mr. Festus Keyamo (SAN) for the Nigeria Police in a fresh case the Police filed against them. In a press statement signed by the Managing Editor of Daily Times newspaper, Bonaventure Melah who doubles as the Media Adviser to Folio Communications Plc, the company and its management decided to petition NBA and NJC because Keyamo being a double appointee of the President, his appearance for the Police is a deliberate plot to intimidate judges by sending subtle signal that the president is interested in the case. According to the statement, the petitions which were signed by Barrister Israel Dinne on behalf of Folio Communications Plc, therefore prayed the two judicial bodies to impress it upon Keyamo to excuse himself from the case or better still, direct him to do so. “Folio and its management decided to petition NBA and JNC because President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier appointed Keyamo SAN as the spokesperson of his presidential campaign organisation and later this year equally appointed Keyamo as a member of the Board of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Commission (NDIC) which makes him purely partisan. “We believe that Keyamo’s appearance in court for the Police is a subtle way of telling the Judge handling our case that President Muhammadu Buhari is interested in the matter which amounts to intimidation. We, therefore, fear that such action has the potency to build or create an atmosphere of fear around the court room which we believe is likely to affect the dispensation of justice without fear or favor,” the statement said. “It is on the background of the above that the management of Folio wrote to NBA and NJC praying that Keyamo SAN, should be advised to excuse himself from the case in order to free the court room from any encumbrances that can engender fear or intimidation, using the respected person and or exalted office of the President and Commander in Chief as an instrument,” it concluded. It would be recalled that the Police had instituted several cases against Folio Communications Plc and its management this year alone. Following their petitions to the President, the Chief Justice of Nigeria and many others in which they alleged Police impunity and abuse of judicial process, the Police withdrew all the cases but went ahead to institute another one, even though the facts are all the same. In their earlier petitions, Folio had complained that Senator Ikechukwu Obiora employed the services of DIG Hyacinth Dagala to invade Daily Times Abuja and Lagos offices, carted away many equipments and properties and equally narrated how its Chairman, Fidelis Anosike and other management officers were arrested and detained, refused bail alongside their staff. “It would interest the public to know that there is a subsisting ruling by the Court of Appeal delivered in 2010 in Lagos which among others things stated clearly that the case involving Folio Communications and Sen. Ikechukwu Obiorah on Daily Times is purely civil and therefore no grounds for criminal charges or trial. If Ikechukwu Obiorah is confident of his claims, why has he refused to challenge that Court of Appeal ruling in the Supreme Court? Why is he running from Court of Appeal down to Magistrate Courts?” they had questioned in the February petitions. ]]>