Former Nigeria Premier League chairman Rumson Baribote has maintained the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) cannot kill the corruption trial of NFF president Amaju Pinnick and four other senior officials.
“The misconception by some people is that the AGF office will kill the case after they took it over from the SPIP, which has been disbanded, but they can’t,” said law student Baribote while giving a clearer explanation of what transpired in court Thursday in Abuja.
“In any matter, there must be an accused and there must be a complainant. The Federal Government is only prosecuting this case on behalf of the complainant.
“The complainants now have a meeting with the lawyers at the AGF office now handling the case.
“On November 5, the prosecution will be in court having had ample time to study the case file.
“The bench warrant order issued by the court, not the case itself, would have been discharged on Thursday because SPIP ought to have handed over officially to the AGF office, so that there would have been someone to prosecute the case.
“The SPIP no longer has the right to prosecute the case after their disbandment by Mr. President.”
Baribote continued: “The SPIP lawyer has now officially handed the case file to the AGF office and on November 5, the accused officials must be in court as ordered.
“The court has demanded the accused persons appear before it because no government agency, not even the AGF office, can constitute itself into a parallel court.
“Whatever will happen, the accused officials have to be in court on the adjourned date.”
The now disbanded Presidential Panel has brought a 17-count charge against the top football officials, which included embezzlement of $8.4 million being money paid to Nigeria for participating at the 2014 World Cup and also “dishonestly” moving over 4 billion Naira belonging to the NFF without the consent of the federation.
