Founder and leader of the pro-Igbo Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) Chief Ralph Uwazuruike and six other leaders of the group risk death penalty with an order from the Supreme court yesterday that they should be tried for treason.
Uwazuruike and the others had since 2005 when they were first arraigned by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration been fighting hard to stop their trial for treason, a move that eventually collapsed at the supreme court today years after the court of appeal equally dismissed their objection to their trial on May 15, 2008. Others facing treason charges with Uwazuruike include Ambrose Anyaso, Augustine Ihuoma, Chibuike Nwosu, Benedict Alakwem, Kelechi Ubabuike and Chimankpa Okorocha. They were first charged at a Federal High Court in Abuja on November 8, 2005 on a four-count charge of conspiracy, treason, belonging to a militant group – MASSOB Army, and belonging to an unlawful society -MASSOB.
Delivering the unanimous judgement of a five man panel yesterday , Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour in the lead judgment noted that the appeal filed on behalf of Uwazuruike and others by Festus Keyamo amounts to ”a waste of precious judicial time since all the information imaginable that the appellants would need for their appeal has been available to them before they appealed to the Court of Appeal.”
“Though the appellants are not entitled to know the nature of evidence against them, the learned trial judge ordered the nature of evidence (information) served on the appellants, and this was done before their appeal in the Court of Appeal. The argument that the charge should be dismissed because it was not accompanied by proof of evidence is a mere technicality designed to defeat the course of justice. In the light of the fact that the proof of evidence has been filed and is available to the appellants, trial should proceed with dispatch. The result is that the two issues urged in this appeal, on behalf of the appellants, fail and the appeal must fail as there is no merit”, the supreme court ruled yesterday .
Analysts believe that the treason trial of the MASSOB seven may further dwindle the diminishing support President Jonathan may get from the Igbos for his 2015 presidential ambition.
Source: Ireports
