Court Sets Aside Warrant To Arrest, Remand Businessman Akintoye Akindele

Akintoye Akindele

An arrest and remand  warrant against Dr Akintoye Akindele, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Duport Midstream Company Limited, has been dismissed by the Nasarawa State Chief Magistrate Court.

TORI reported on Wednesday that a Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja, granted the  Lagos businessman N500 million bail.

The Police had arraigned Akindele on Tuesday on one count of bribery so that he could escape abroad.

According to the police prosecution team, the defendant offered a N150 million bribe to police officers investigating a case of fund diversion brought against him. and made a partial payment of N50 million.

The prosecution said the alleged offence is punishable under Section 118 of the Penal Code Law.

Akindele, however, pleaded not guilty when the charge was read to him, after which his lawyer applied for bail.

In a ruling on Tuesday, Justice Hamza Muazu rejected the request by the lawyer for the prosecution, Simon Lough (SAN), to further detain the defendant to enable the police to conclude their investigation.

Justice Muazu agreed with the defence lawyer, Henry Eni-Otu, that the offence with which the defendant was charged is ordinarily bailable.

He granted Akindele bail to the tune of N500 million with two sureties in like sum, adding that one of the sureties must own a landed property within the jurisdiction and should be a resident of the Federal Capital Territory.

This platform, however, gathered today that Akindele, through his lawyers, had approached the court praying for an order to set aside a warrant of arrest and a warrant of commitment to prison on remand earlier made for being a nullity on the grounds that the court lacked jurisdiction and non-disclosure as well as suppression of material facts.

In Suit No: CMC/MG/CR/175/2023, the court, on August 23, 2023, gave the order in the case between Akindele (defendant) and the Inspector General of Police (the complainant).

A copy of the court order was made available by one of the lawyers of the defendant, Pelumi Olajengbesi, and sighted by Nigerian Tribu revealed that the court subsequently ordered the “setting aside and discharging the warrant of arrest, warrant of search and warrant of commitment to prison on remand against the defendant (Dr Akintoye Akindele).”

Commenting on the development, Olajengbesi said, “The implication of the court order is to nullify the basis upon which he was arrested in the first place, which means that the arrest and search were wrongfully made without proper order from the court.

“The standard in our criminal jurisprudence is investigation before arrest. It is worrisome that the Nigeria Police Force will have to approach a magistrate court in Nasarawa State, where the court has no jurisdiction to obtain such a warrant, and after the court said it lacked jurisdiction on the matter and invited the police to defend it, the police failed to show up having recognised their error in the whole unnecessary drama.”

Akindele had opened up on a business dispute with the family of the late MKO Abiola.

The businessman alleges that his business rivals are trying to weave unfound fraud allegations around him through cronies, describing all fraud allegations against him as false.