Police arraign local government chairman over alleged age falsification

The police, on Thursday, arraigned the chairman of a local government in Akwa Ibom State for age falsification and perjury.

Isreal Idiasin, the chairman of Ini Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, pleaded not guilty to the two counts read to him at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

The police alleged in the charges seen by PREMIUM TIMES that Mr Idiasin falsified his date of birth through a sworn affidavit, contrary to the one sworn by his late father, which he used to contest and win the local government chairmanship position.

The police also accused him of making false evidence through affidavits which he deposed to that he had never worked in any public office, whereas he was earlier engaged by the Nigeria Postal Service.

Defendant’s bail

After Mr Idiasin’s plea of not guilty, his team of lawyers, led by an erstwhile Attorney-General of Akwa Ibom State, Uwemedimo Nwoko, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), urged the court to release him on bail.

The prosecuting lawyer, B. N. Ezeala, did not oppose the bail application, but urged the court to exercise its discretionary powers on it.

The trial judge, Emeka Nwite, then stood the case down for about an hour to prepare his ruling.

Ruling after retuning to continue the proceedings, the judge granted the defendant bail in the sum of N10 million with two sureties in like sum.

The court held that the sureties must be reasonable citizens that are resident within Abuja.

It ordered that the sureties must swear an affidavit of means and deposit their two recent passport photographs with the court registry.

In addition, Mr Idiasin was ordered to deposit his travel documents with the Chief Registrar of the court.

The judge adjourned the suit until April 4 for trial.

The court ordered that the defendant should be remanded in a correctional center, pending the perfection of all the bail conditions.