Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, the principal surety to the embattled self-acclaimed Biafran leader, Nnamdi Kanu may on July 26 apply for a refund of his N100M forfeited to the federal government when Kanu jumped bail.
Kanu, who jumped bail in 2019, has just been rearrested and will appear in Federal High Court for the continuation of his criminal trial on terrorism charges.
The senator representing Abia North Senatorial district in the Senate had forfeited the huge sum in lieu of his inability to produce Kanu in court to face the criminal trial.
Abaribe was said to have been given opportunities five times to produce Kanu as required by law but could not meet up.
In one of his appearances in court, the Senator has alleged that that the federal government caused Kanu to jump bail and escaped out of the country when armed soldiers allegedly invaded his family house.
He prayed the court to hold the federal government responsible for the escape and spare him the pain of forfeiting the bail bonds
Justice Binta Nyako, however, rejected the prayers of the surety and ordered him to either forfeit the bail bonds or stand in place of Kanu for criminal trial on terrorism and reasonable felony punishable with either death or life imprisonment.
The Senate minority leader was said to have subsequently opted for lesser punishment and thereafter forfeited the huge sum.
Although a source from DAILY POST could not reach Abaribe for comments, one of his lawyers, Maxwell Okpara, said that the legal team of Abaribe will apply for a refund of the money for their client.
“It is a settled law that once escapee defendant in a criminal matter is rearrested, the surety who forfeited bond must be refunded.
It does not matter whether the escapee accused person is rearrested by the surety or somebody else as in the instant matter. The bottom line is that our client must be refunded to the tune of N100M he had earlier forfeited in the course of the suretyship,” the lawyer said.
