Kure loses bid to stop probe

Dipo Laleye, Minna - 05.03.2008

Former Niger State governor, Alhaji Abdulkhadir Kure, has lost in his bid to stop the judicial commission of inquiry set up by the state government from sitting. The present administration in the state set up the panel, headed by Justice Aliyu Maiyaki, to look into contracts awarded by Alhaji Kure’s eight years regime in the state.

The commission was also to investigate all the then 42 local government councils in the state and sales of government property under the then governments’ privatisation policy. Kure, immediately the commission was inaugurated by governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu, went to court to challenge not only the composition of the panel but its terms and sought an interlocutory injunction stopping the commission from carrying out its assignment.

Ruling on the application, the state’s Chief Judge, Justic Jibrin Ndajiwo, said what the former governor asked for could not be granted because it would amount to “a pre- judgment in an issue which is yet to be tried.”

Justice Ndajiwo held that the work of the commission was in public interest and under the circumstance the interest of an individual citizen could not take precedent or be greater than the overall interest of the people.

The chief judge said the submission by the former governor that he was the target of the commission “is unfounded,” adding that the fear of infraction of his liberty as speculated in the affidavit had no basis in law.

The court held that the claim by the counselfor the former governor was also unfounded, saying that from what was before the court, the liberty of former Governor Kure was not in danger.