Ex-Customs Comptroller to CCT Chairman: You can’t try me because you once demanded N10m from me

A retired Comptroller of Customs, Mr Rasheed Taiwo Owolabi, standing trial on false asset declaration charges, has asked the embattled Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), Mr. Danladi Yakubu Umar, to disqualify himself from the tribunal panel that will try him, because of his involvement in a pending N10 million bribery saga.
The ex-Customs chief claimed that Umar in 2012 demanded a bribe of N10 million from him to pervert the cause of justice in a criminal matter filed against him by the federal government.
In a motion on notice filed by his counsel, Mr. Festus Keyamo, the applicant claimed that he reported Umar to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), prompting his arrest and interrogation on the alleged bribery request.
Owolabi claimed that he will never get fair trial and justice from the CCT boss, having implicated him in the bribery saga and which led to the ongoing trial of his Personal Assistant, Ali Gambo Abdullahi, for criminal offence at an Abuja High
Court.
Specifically, Owolabi alleged that the CCT boss had become biased against him for dragging him (Umar) to the anti –graft agency on his demand for N10 million bribe and the part payment of N1.8 million, hence he cannot get justice before Umar.
Owolabi is billed to appear before the tribunal on the false declaration of asset charges slammed on him since June 6, 2012 and he is praying that the charge be stuck out for want of diligent prosecution and for the likelihood of bias against him.
The motion was predicated on five issues among which was that during the pendency of his trial, he made several allegations of graft against the CCT Chairman, which led to the trial of his PA in respect of the allegation.
He insisted that it has become legally impossible for the CCT Chairman to adjudicate over the matter because of a real likelihood of bias by Umar against him.
In a three-paragraph affidavit in support of the motion, the applicant claimed that in the course of his trial, he had reasons to raise allegations of graft against the CCT boss.
He averred that in the course of investigation by EFCC Mr. Ali Gambo Abdullahi, the PA to the CCT boss, admitted in his statement that he collected certain sums of money from the applicant as inducement and that he handed over the money
to the CCT Chairman.
The deponent claimed that based on the EFCC findings, a coalition of civil rights groups under the auspices of the Registered Trustees of the Mission for Peace and Development Initiative filed a court action at the Federal High Court, seeking an order of mandamus from the court to compel the Attorney General of the Federation to file a criminal indictment against the CCT boss.
The applicant, therefore, ask Umar to disqualify himself from the CCT panel billed to try him on the ground that he (Applicant) will not get fair trial and justice from any trial conducted by Umar.