Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, sitting in Maitama, Abuja, on April 19, 2018, dismissed an application filed by a former spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Olisa Metuh, seeking for an order to release his international passport to enable him travel to the United Kingdom, UK for medicals.
The application, which was made through his counsel, Emeka Etiaba, SAN, on March 16, 2018, was refused on the grounds that similar applications have been made onMay 25, 2016 and February 23, 2017respectively, with similar grounds contained therein. The trial judge thus wondered if truly Metuh was ill.
Justice Abang said: reference is hereby made to ground 5, ground 6, ground 7, ground 8, ground 9, ground 10, in the application filed by the first defendant, dated May 16, 2016.
“These grounds are the same grounds relied upon by the first defendant in ground 3, ground 4, ground 5, ground 6 in the instant application. These are the same grounds that the applicant relied in the application dated February 23 2018. See ground 4, ground 5, ground 9, 10, 12, 13 of the instant application.“It is my humble view that nothing has changed in this application that was not mentioned in the earlier applications. The central issue in the two earlier applications that is similar or the same in the instant application being the release of the first defendant’s international passport to enable him go for surgery at Willington Hospital.“I agree with the learned counsel for the prosecution, Silvanus Tahir entirely, that the only thing that has changed is that a third application is being filed in court. But, it is the same relief, same fact, same issues that arose in the earlier application that arise in the instant application. “It is not the first time that the applicant said he lost sensation in his lower limb. He said exactly the same thing in ground 5 and 6 of his earlier application dated May 16, 2016, except that he used different words to express the same situation.”
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