Boko Haram Funding: Ndume To Be Tried Secretly

The trial of Senator Mohammed Ndume, an alleged sponsor of Boko Haram, will now be conducted in the secret, an Abuja court has directed. The lawmaker was accused of having links with the Islamic sect, which has carried out deadly attacks in some parts of northern Nigeria. The Federal Government moved to have Ndume tried secretly, but his lawyers opposed.

According to the government, the secret trial of the accused person would protect the identities of witnesses in the case, but the Senator’s counsels, led by Rickey Tarfa, SAN, argued that a secret trial would violate the ‘fair trial’ provided in Section 36 (3) of the 1999 Constitution.

In his judgement, Justice Gabriel Kolawole of a Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that the trial should be done in secret. He explained that though there were no enough grounds to grant the secret trial, but the issue of national security overrides any individual’s fundamental human rights.

Justice Kolawole pointed out that due to the nature of the charge against the accused, and his personality, it was necessary to protect the witnesses in the matter. He ruled that only accredited journalists would be allowed into the court.