Chairman of the Human and Environmental Development Agenda Lanre Suraj has vowed to ensure that those who falsely framed him over allegations of cyberstalking pay for their wickedness against him.
Suraj stated this shortly the case against him was struck out by the court.
Recall that Suraj was few weeks ago attacked in his residence in a suburb of Lagos by gunmen who invaded in the night.
Suraju was allegedly indicted following an alleged investigation carried out by the IGP monitoring team in Abuja for circulating forged email and alleged telephone interviews of Adoke with respect to the massive bribery, which followed the sale of the controversial OPL 124 oil block, also known as Malabu in 2011 in a transaction between Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd, Shell and Eni.
Adoke was accused of using the email address of a company owned by one Aliyu Abubakar, who was on trial in Italy over the OPL 245 affair to confirm the financial transactions.
The email was intended to support the claim that there was corruption, alleging that Adoke and Abubakar worked together on the deal.
The case had dragged on for months.
However, the court on Tuesday struck out the case against Suraj.
Writing on his Facebook page, he said “The final triumph of truth and consistency over falsehood, fraud, mega corruption and persecution. The fabricated cyberstalking charge was struck out today. Thanks to you all for the supports. It is time to claim damages for malicious prosecution and even pursue some of our traducers for providing false information to public officers. Let the battle begin.”
The decision of the court on Tuesday was said to have been as a result of the directive from the office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Mallami who asked for the withdrawal of the matter.
The prosecuting counsel, Mrs. Yewande Cole had told the court that she had the instruction of the Minister to withdraw the case.
“I have the instruction of the Attorney-General to withdraw the amended charge of two counts for further review.
“This means that the court will strike out the case and when we are ready to go on, we will come back and refile it,” Cole said.
She however said that Suraj could only be discharged without being acquitted at this point over the case.
Counsel to the HEDA boss, Mr. Muiz Banire, (SAN), asked the court to acquit his client.
He argued that the natural cause of action following such an application for withdrawal was to be acquitted as well.
“It is law as contained in Section 355 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) that where such an application is made, the court will acquit the defendant.”
Banire also asked the court to order the release of the N7 million bond he posted to secure the bail of his client. The senior lawyer further asked the court to award N1 million cost to him.
In a short ruling, Justice Binta Nyako discharged Suraju and also discharged the N7 million bail bond.
Justice Nyako, however, ordered the prosecution to pay N250,000 to the defendant, whenever the case was going to be refiled.
The case was filed against the HEDA boss by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.
In count one of the charge marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/370/2021,
He was accused of intentionally circulating an audio telephone interview between one Ms Carlamaria Rumur, a reporter with RIA Reporter in Italy and Adoke via his twitter handle @HEDAagenda.
This, the charge alleged he knew to be false, for the purpose of causing insult to Adoke and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 24 of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention ETC) Act 2015 and punishable under the same section of the act.
The count two had it that the defendant was accused of committing the same offense in count one via his Facebook handle, @HEDAResourcecentre