JUST IN: Former minister accuses Nigerian courts of excessive bail conditions

In a statement titled “Bail and the Dignity of the Law: A Call For Judicial Restraint”, Chidoka criticised a recent High Court ruling in Abuja which granted bail to a defendant but attached what he described as unrealistic conditions.

According to him, the court required the defendant to provide sureties who are serving federal civil servants on grade level 16 or above, own property in Abuja worth ₦500 million each, and furnish a bank guarantee of ₦15 billion.

“By the court’s ruling, we are asking that officer to show assets worth five times his lifetime earnings — and to stand behind a liability of ₦15 billion, roughly 150 times everything an honest career could ever yield,” he LAMENTED.

The former minister argued that the conditions create the impression that integrity is measured by wealth rather than character.

“What message does this send? It says, in the plainest terms, that lawful public service cannot produce the wealth the court now expects of a respectable citizen and that the civil servant worth trusting is the one who has, somehow, acquired what his salary could never explain.

“In an anti-corruption case, of all places, that is a strange proxy for integrity. The passport condition compounds the error. Senior officers travel on the nation’s business to negotiations, conferences, training. Stripping them of their passports merely to vouch for an accused person interferes with the very duties the state employs them to perform,” he said.

The former minister said the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) prohibits excessive bail conditions, while also citing the Court of Appeal’s decision in Dasuki v. D.G., SSS.

“Section 165 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act commands that bail conditions ‘shall not be excessive’ In Dasuki v. D.G., SSS, the Court of Appeal held the use of serving public servants as sureties unknown to our law, contrary to the Public Service Rules, and corrosive of the fight against corruption — and struck down a ₦100 million requirement,” he said.

Chidoka argued that courts should not impose conditions that are practically impossible to satisfy.

His words: “A court that finds no real risk of flight cannot, in the same breath, impose conditions fit for a fugitive of vast and unexplained means.

“Conditions that cannot be met are not conditions; they are a denial of bail by arithmetic, keeping the presumed-innocent in detention not because the law demanded it, but because their freedom was priced out of reach.”

He said the purpose of bail is to ensure attendance at trial and not to punish an accused person before conviction.

He stated: “The war against corruption is won by lawful means or it is not won at all. Let the courts secure attendance at trial, that is their duty, and let them stop there.

“The purpose of bail is to guarantee appearance. It was never to measure a man’s wealth, to punish him before his guilt is proved, or to make honest public service a thing to be ashamed of.”

Chidoka called on the judiciary to end what he described as an overreliance on wealthy sureties and high-value properties as indicators of credibility.

“Time to end this fixation with civil servants as sureties and Maitama and Asokoro as the only measure of value before our courts.

“It is discriminatory and humiliating for those who do not live in the court sanctioned prime neighbourhood and cast a cloud of corruption on public servants. On both counts, the law could not have intended or envisaged the weaponisation of wealth over character,” he concluded.