Immigration accuses Justice Ngwuta of dubious passport use
From: Godwin Tsa, Abuja
Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) yesterday told a Federal High Court in Abuja that the use of two diplomatic passports and two other standard international passports simultaneously by Justice Sylvester Ngwuta of the Supreme Court was not a genuine mistake.
An Immigration official, Nuhu Tanko Kutana, stated this during the trial of the Supreme Court Justice.
Under cross examination led by counsel to Justice Ngwuta, Mr. Kanu Agabi, SAN, the third prosecution witness said that the defendant was in possession of four diplomatic passports – three Standard International Passports and one ECOWAS passport.
He further told the court that the defendant’s conduct and use of the passports, which he had declared in sworn affidavit as missing, did not show it was a genuine mistake, as he went ahead and started using them.
Kutana further stated that the defendant would have reported to the Nigerian Immigration Services, which replaced those passports when he recovered the ones he claimed were lost.
The witness admitted he made two statements and the additional statement was based on what he saw later in the document. The defendant’s lawyer requested to tender the additional statement and it was admitted in evidence as an exhibit.
Mr. Kutana said he analysed the seven passports handed to him by the office of the Attorney General of Federation and found that they were genuine. That they were authorised based on letters written on the directive of the defendant by one Mrs. L Nwankwo, a protocol officer with the Supreme Court.
He agreed that Mrs. Nwankwo misinformed the NIS but on the directive of Justice Ngwuta that he had lost the passports.
He said that under the law, there were circumstances where a citizen could have standard passport and diplomatic passports, “but you are not allowed to have two valid diplomatic passports at the same time.
It is illegal,” he added.
He explained that when passport is issued in replacement of an old one, the number is endorsed on the new passport.
The witness also stated that there were two valid visas on exhibit 5 (a) diplomatic passport that was reported lost and exhibit 5 (b) the replaced diplomatic passport because the defendant went and applied for another visa for the replaced passport exhibit 5 (b).
He said it is an offence to discard passport that is valid and ask for the issuance of a new one. He said the defendant failed to report when he found the old one and began to use it. “We make allowance for genuine mistakes, but the defendant’s conduct did not show that it is a genuine mistake as he went ahead and started to use it,” Kutana said.
Justice John Tsoho adjourned the case to October 20 and 27 for continuation.
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