Court grants Fayose leave to travel abroad

Akeem Nafiu, Lagos - 25.07.2008

FORMER governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has been granted permission by a Federal High Court in Lagos to travel overseas for medical treatment.

The permission was granted on Thursday by Justice Tijani Abubakar, who had earlier extended a similar gesture to ex-Enugu State governor, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani.

Both former governors are on trial before the court on allegations of money laundering and related conducts while in office.

The judge, upon hearing Fayose’s application and arguments by lawyers in the matter, on Thursday, noted that “the justice of the case is to allow the accused person take care of his health first so that he will be fit to stand trial.”

He added that since the prosecution lawyer, Mr. Wahab Shittu, was not opposed to the request for foreign treatment, “we should allow him.”

One Mr. Bimpe Olatemiju, who deposed to a supporting affidavit to the application (a motion on notice), said it was imperative that the accused be allowed to undertake the foreign trip.

He said Fayose suffers from “hypertension and hyperlipidaemia” for which his physicians at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, had advised that he undertakes a “test on carotid Angiogram” to determine the extent of the “severe and chronic chest pain which he complains of at the moment.”

The court had on 29 June, 2008 upon refusing Fayose’s prayers to quash the 51-count charge on which he was arraigned, set next Tuesday for the opening of trial in the case brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).