Defendants charged with offences of examination malpractices allegedly involving a former governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Osun State, Ademola Adeleke, on Tuesday urged the Federal High Court in Abuja to dismiss the case.
The four defendants comprised a relative of the former governorship candidate, Sikiru Adeleke, the principal of Ojo-Aro Community Grammar School, Alhaji Aregbesola Muftau; the registrar of the school, Gbadamosi Ojo; and a teacher in the school, Dare Samuel Olutope.
The four defendants, through their respective lawyers, argued on Tuesday that the exhibits tendered and the five prosecution witnesses who testified in the case failed to make out any prima facie case or link them to any of the counts.
They urged Justice Inyang Ekwo to uphold their no-case submission which they filed after the prosecution closed its case with five witnesses and hold that there was no sufficient evidence led by the prosecution to warrant calling on them to put up a defence.
Adeleke who contested the September 22, 2018 governorship election in Osun State and came second, was originally arraigned along with the four other defendants on October 31, 2018.
But Justice Ekwo had on May 29, 2020, struck Adeleke’s name off the seven charges, following a request by the prosecution, Mr Simon Lough.
Lough had said he decided to have Adeleke’s name removed from the charges because of his continued absence from the court and in order not to allow the absence to continue to stall the trial.
Adeleke had stopped attending court after he was granted permission by the court on May 6, 2019, to travel to the United States of America on health grounds, and ordered to return to the country by June 7, 2019.
Following the court’s order striking Adeleke’s name from the charges, Lough amended the charges, limiting the list of the defendants to the four remaining defendants.
The four remaining defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges upon their re-arraignment on May 29, 2020.
They were also accused of impersonating “as students of Ojo-Aro Community Grammar School when you fraudulently registered as internal students of the school in the June/July, 2017 NECO, and having registered, conspired with unknown persons now at large to write the examination for them.”
The prosecution accused them of committing the offence of examination malpractices by fraudulently, through impersonation, registering Adeleke and another Sikiru Adeleke, as students of Ojo-Aro Community Grammar School, in Ojo-Aro in Osun State, for the National Examination Council’s June/July 2017 Senior School Certificate Examination in February 2017.
It alleged that Ademola and Sikiru Adeleke were fraudulently registered for the examination and “awarded them seven credits, one pass, and five credits respectively, and thereby committed an offence contrary to section 10(a) and punishable under section 3 of the Examination Malpractices Act Cap E15 LFN 2004.”
According to the prosecution counsel, the offences were said to be contrary to and punishable under the various provisions of the Examination Malpractices Act Cap E15 LFN 2004.
But defence lawyers, Mr Nathaniel Oke (SAN), Abdulfatai Abdusallam, and Adegbite Isaac, on Tuesday, urged the court to dismiss the seven counts on the grounds including that the elements of the alleged offences were not proved, essential witnesses including NECO officials, were not called, the evidence of the prosecution witnesses was hearsay and discredited during cross-examination.
But in his brief response, Lough said the testimony of an investigative police officer on what “he did, saw or knew in the course of the investigation can never be a hearsay”.
Justice Ekwo fixed January 26, 2021, for a ruling.
(Punch)
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