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Justice Obiora Egwuatu of a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Friday granted a N10 million bail each to 72 of the 76 #EndBadGovernance protesters arraigned by the Federal Government on charges bordering on treasonable felony, rioting, destruction of public property, assaulting security officials, and looting, among others.
The defendants are made up of 28 Minors and 44 other protesters arrested from several locations in Kaduna, Kano, Gombe, Plateau, Katsina States and the FCT.
Justice Obiora Egwuata, however, remanded the adults at the Kuje Correctional Centre Abuja, while the minors are to be remanded at the Bostal Children’s Home pending the perfection of their bail conditions.
Justice Obiora, who said the protesters should present a surety each in like sum, said the sureties for the adults should be civil servants and must provide a valid identity card, a proper residential address, and passport-sized photographs, among others.
The minors could either provide a parent or sibling as surety with similar particulars.
The 10-count charge borders on treasonable felony, rioting, destruction of public property, assaulting security officials, and looting/theft of public property, among others.
All the defendants, made up of 28 minors and 44 others, pleaded not guilty to the charges read to them as four minors were excluded from the exercise due to ill health.
Earlier, there was drama in the courtroom. as four of the minors, looking very malnourished, fainted as they approached the dock for arraignment with their lawyers rushing to provide aid.
The prosecuting counsel applied to the court for four suspects who earlier fainted to get first aid and be arraigned later.
Justice Egwuatu, on seeing the situation, called a brief recess to enable the protesters who were sick to be attended to.
Upon resumption, the court, however, granted the prayers for four suspects to be exempted from the arraignment to a later date.
Recall that on September 2, Egbetokun arraigned 10 #EndBadGovernance protesters before Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja, who initially granted them bail totalling N100 million.
However, five of the protesters were unable to meet the bail conditions and subsequently filed a variation application, which Justice Nwite granted, reducing the bail to N5 million for each of them.
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