Justice Akintunde Boade of the Oyo State High Court, Ibadan has adjourned to April 26 for hearing of the applications filed by the prosecuting counsel, Godwin Obla, for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and counsel to the accused persons, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN.
The accused persons are Christopher Alao-Akala, former governor of Oyo State; Hosea Ayoola Agboola, a serving senator; and Olufemi Babalola, a businessman.
According to a statement by the acting Head, Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, the three men were arraigned for alleged conspiracy to steal and award contracts without budgetary provisions.
At the resumed hearing on Monday, Obla said he had filed a preliminary objection to the application by the accused persons seeking to quash the charges against them.
He urged the court to take notices of his preliminary objection.
Fagbemi, who led four other Senior Advocates of Nigeria and a horde of lawyers in defence of the accused persons, had filed a motion on notice dated December 16, 2011 in which he sought to quash the charges preferred against the accused persons on the grounds that the charges do not disclose any offence known to law.
However, in part of his written address in support of his notice of preliminary objection, Obla noted: “The law is trite that by virtue of Section 167 of the Criminal Procedure Act Laws of the Federation 2004, an objection to a charge like the instant 1st, 2nd and 3rd accused persons motion on notice, shall be taken immediately after the charge is read over to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd accused persons and not later.”
He also stated that the proper time or stage when the accused persons ought to have filed the motion on notice was when the charge was read to the accused persons.
Although Fagbemi had requested for 21 days to respond to the preliminary objection, stating that each of the accused persons would need about seven days to file his response, he said he was going to respond to each of the accused persons application one by one.
Obla objected to the request stating that the application was akin to a bail application and so the court ought to hear it expeditiously.
He also told the court that the accused persons were well represented by senior advocates and many other lawyers so they were capable of responding within seven days.
Baade then adjourned proceedings to April 26 for hearing of the applications.
Alao-Akala and the two other accused persons were first arraigned before Justice M. Abbas but were re-arraigned before Boade after Abbas voluntarily withdrew from the case.
Boade admitted the three accused persons to bail with the same bail terms under Abbas.