The Department of State Services (DSS), on Tuesday, informed the Federal High Court in Abuja that the bid by African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, to flip its lead counsel, Akinlolu Kehinde, SAN, into his witness, is the politician’s ploy to delay his trial for allegedly cyberbullying President Bola Tinubu.
The DSS informed the court docket that the subpoena Sowore issued on its lead counsel was in unhealthy religion and unusual in regulation and in felony trial. Under Section 192 of the Evidence Act, said the lawyer, no authorized practitioner is permitted to disclose any communication made to him in the course of his engagement except with the consent of his shopper.
The DSS added that Sowore’s subpoena was an abuse of court docket course of calculated to annoy and irritate its lead counsel.
The submission by the DSS got here because the trial decide, Justice Mohammed Garba Umar, fastened November 9, to ship ruling on Sowore’s
software.
The decide fastened the date after taking arguments for and towards the applying by counsel on either side.
At Tuesday’s proceedings, Kenneth Cyril-Ita, who represented the DSS, requested the court docket to put aside the subpoena issued towards Kehinde, SAN, by Sowore in search of to flip the DSS lead lawyer right into a witness in the trial.
Sowore, by means of his lawyer, Adeyinka Olumide Fusika, SAN, had served a subpoena on the DSS lead counsel to seem in court docket to give proof in respect of the trial of the defendant for allegedly cyberbullying President Tinubu.
In his movement on discover towards the execution of the subpoena, Cyril-Ita informed the Court that the proof sought to be given by means of the subpoena witness is irrelevant to Sowore’s alleged cyberbullying trial. Contrary to Sowore’s declare, the DSS lawyer mentioned there was no software earlier than the Court to droop or adjourn the trial until 2027.
“By not setting aside the subpoena, the Court is being invited to deprive the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a counsel of its choice in the prosecution of the matter as counsel cannot be a witness and counsel at the same time in the same matter,” he said.
“The evidence of whether the Complainant will ask for adjournment or not in the matter as shown in the publication sought to be tendered is a matter allegedly caught by section 83(3) of the Evidence Act,” he continued.
He, due to this fact, urged Justice Umar to put aside the subpoena and direct Sowore to proceed his defence in the fees towards him.
In his argument, Ruben Adakole, who represented Sowore, requested the Court to uphold the subpoena towards the DSS lead counsel as requested by the defendant to make him his witness.
Thereafter, Justice Umar adjourned to November 9, to ship his resolution on the matter.
