A MAGISTRATE court sitting in Minna, the Niger State capital, yesterday granted bail to Senator Ibrahim Musa Kontagora of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), representing Niger North senatorial district in the National Assembly.

The senator was on Monday arrested by men of the State Security Service (SSS) over alleged forgery of tax certificate he presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the last general elections.

He was charged to court on three-count charge of forgery, criminal conspiracy and misleading public officer and was subsequently remanded in prison custody.

Granting the accused person bail for the sum of N50, 000, with two sureties in like sum, the presiding Magistrate,  Zainab Gana said the offence is billable.

The prosecutor, Mark Anayo Igwe, had earlier urged the court not to grant the accused bail because of the gravity of the offence and that there was a likelihood of his interference with investigation “because of his criminal antecedence.”

The prosecutor claimed that the detention of Kontagora was in his own interest to prevent him from being lynched by members of the public.

The prosecutor requested that should the court agree to grant the senator bail, he should be asked to report in court every two days.

Chairman of the Niger State Chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) of which the senator is a member, Isah Panti, appealed to the court to grant him bail, vouching that he will attend the court and report to the police when he is needed.

Magistrate Gani, in her ruling, granted the accused bail and asked him to provide a surety, who must be owner of a landed property in the state.

The case was adjourned till further notice.

-The Guardian

Posted by admin on Jul 15 2011. Filed under Headlines, Niger, Senate, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry