Yunusa Dahiru, alleged abductor of Ese Oruru, the Bayelsa teenage girl who was taken to Kano, and converted to Islam, has been granted a N3million bail.
The police had arrested Yunusa in Kano on March 3, transferred him to Yenagoa, Bayelsa state capital, where he was arraigned before H. A. Nganjiwa, a justice of the federal high court, on March 8, on a five-count charge bordering on kidnap and sexual exploitation.
Yunusa had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
But Kenneth Dika, counsel for the prosecution, told the trial judge that the victim was a minor and deserved the court’s protection.
Dika said the state was ready with six witnesses to ensure successful prosecution of the case.
However, Kayode Olaoshebikan, Yunusa’s counsel, opposed Dika’s application and sought for bail for his client, arguing that it was a matter between “two love birds”.
“It is easy for the prosecution to bring up charges but Yunusa as a man has pleaded not guilty and it is left for the prosecution to prove their case beyond every reasonable doubt,” he had said.
“It is a case of two love birds. In our social parlance, we call it elopement, but government and the state prefer to call it abduction and it is left for the court to decide whether it is abduction or elopement of two minors.”
He buttressed his application with sections 152 and 162 of the administration of criminal act and section 32 of the constitution, seeking an order to admit the accused to bail pending the determination of his case.
James Anata, Ese’s counsel, opposed the bail application, arguing that if Yunusa was admitted to bail, the course of justice would not be served, as the accused, who is not resident in Yenagoa, would go back to Kano.
After listening to the arguments, Nganjiwa adjourned the matter to Monday for ruling on Yunusa’s bail application and for Ese to give evidence in private.
In his ruling on Monday, the judge granted Yunusa N3million bail and asked him to produce two sureties in like sum.
He said the sureties, who must be resident in Bayelsa, should provide tax clearance of at least three years.
Nganjiwa also ordered that Yunusa be remanded in prison custody till he fulfilled the bail conditions.
The judge adjourned the matter to April 17 for ruling on the application for Oruru to give evidence in private.
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Nigeria right activists make so much noise on issues that are less provocative. I have followed the Ese-Yunusa’ ‘abduction’ saga for some time now and I have come to realization that Nigerians generally, are like one-way traffic-they follow the direction of the wind and join the fray when the social media yell. I am not an apologist of the North, or Kano where the principal culprit in this saga hails from. Yunusa is now an abductor because he is not from Edo, Delta or Lagos States; and Ese became a queen of the tube of sort because she was abducted by an Hausa boy. Interestingly, the likes of our light complexioned TV-Czar turned Senator led a one-man riot to fight for the release and return of the ‘virgin’ Ese incredibly abducted from his State. Other human right activists joined in the call for the prosecution of poor Yunusa, who I am pretty sure must have spent fortunes on Ese to win her over to the point of giving up her faith of Christianity to Islam and decided to even wear hijab in the emirate city of Kano ( I hope the picture harped on the media is truly hers).
Painfully, this case has degenerated from the proportion of Romeo Yunusa and Juliet Ese to that of Chibok girls (apology to the agonizing parents) and unrepentant boko-haram militants. Pray, shouldn’t someone think that Ese just on her own must have followed the man she loved? If Yunusa is from Edo, Delta, Lagos or Bayelsa and ‘abducted’ Ese as dubbed by her parent and other concerned ‘sympathizers’, the sudden disappearance of Ese would have been treated as case of a missing girl that was later found in Kano. Whatever transpired at this level would have been treated as purely family issue. ‘Lejo ba pari’. Meaning case closed. While I am not in support of the way and manner Yunusa went about his loverbird adventurism, Ese’s hand and that of her mother’s are not really clean in this matter. Who knows how much of illegal ‘token’ the mother must have received from Yunusa to kick start the process of the botched elopement. We need Ese’s side of this matter to enable us balance our criticisms on Yunusa which is already taking toll on the poor lover-boy from Kano.