31 July 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS – THE son of Ahmadu Ali, former national chairmnan of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has asked the Lagos court trying him alongside others for fraud over Nigeria’s fuel subsidy scheme to vary his bail conditions.
Mamman Ali, allegedly implicated in a N13 billion fuel subsidy fraud, brought the plea through his lawyer during his arraignment with two other suspects and an oil firm, Monday, in the alleged fraud.
When Mamman Ali and his co-accused, including Mahmud Tukur, son of PDP National Chairman Bamanga Tukur, were arraigned last Thursday, Justice Adeniyi Onigbanjo granted each of them bail in the sum of N20 million, with two sureties.
One of the sureties is expected to be a blood relation of the suspect, who must own a property worth not less than N100 million in Lagos, with verifiable title document.
The other surety, who must be a level 16 officer in the Lagos State or federal civil service, must produce three years tax clearance verified by the chief registrar of the high court.
The accused persons are also to deposit their international passports with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) whose officials must not release it without the express permission of the court. The matter was then adjourned till October 11.
Ali’s lawyer, Mr. Toyin Pinheiro, applied for variation of the bail granted his client and the 3rd defendant, Christian Taylor.
“I have filed a new application for variation of bail terms granted the defendants at the last hearing. So, there are two applications before the court now. “We want to withdraw the earlier one dated July 27, 2012. The new one was filed today (Monday). I have discussed with my learned colleague. That is the one we want to argue now,” Pinheiro told the court.
Mr. Rotimi Jacobs, counsel to the prosecution, , told the court that they were in the process of filing their response to the earlier application when they were served with the new application for variation of bail condition.
Jacobs told the court that they would need time to respond to the new application, in view of the issues raised in it.
Ali, his company Nasaman Oil Services and Christian Taylor were jointly arraigned for allegedly conspiring to fraudulently obtain N4,461,136,798.94 by false pretence from the Federal Government, purporting the sum to be payment under Petroleum Support Fund (PSF) as subsidy for the purported importation of PMS from Europe to Nigeria.
After a consideration of the views of the prosecution and defence, Justice Onigbanjo adjourned the matter till Wednesday for argument of application for bail variation.