Yakubu Busari, Jos
There was mild drama inside Federal High Court 2 in Jos, the Plateau State capital, yesterday, when the case of alleged varsity certificate forgery preferred against a lawmaker, Ibrahim Baba Hassan, came up for hearing and the counsel to the Registrar of University of Jos, who was absent, told the court that he learnt about his absence on getting to the court premises that morning.
Barr. David C. Ibeawuchi, the counsel, told the court that he observed the Registrar still on oath before the Court had written to inform the court that the National University had invited all University Registrars for one week executive retreat and therefore could appear in the court.
“I only saw my witness letter dated 7th May, 2018, this morning in the court, so I am not aware that he has written a letter to the court registrar regarding his retreat,” Counsel Ibeawuchi said.
Justice Musa Kurya immediately retorted, “I don’t believe you, you are a liar to say that you don’t know anything about the letter and the absence of the Registrar, but only this morning when you arrived the court premises, it is not true,”.
The matter pending before Justice Kurya was to examine 7 applications seeking for admissibility as tendered documents and exhibits by the plaintiff for which the Registrar would been cross- examined.
Justice Kurya, having carefully studied the arguments of both counsels, further ruled in favour of the plaintiff and subsequently admitted the tendered documents which were marked as exhibit 7 to 11.
He however declined the application for payment of cost to the tune of N50,000 for the 1st defendant and N20,000 each to the 2nd and 3rd defendants and adjourned the case to June 6, 2018, for continuation of hearing.
