The suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, rested his case in his ongoing trial on charges of false and non-declaration of assets.
The development came as a surprise as the defendant, whose lawyer, Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN), had indicated on Monday that the defence would be calling “two or three witnesses,” only one of whom had testified at the previous Monday’s proceedings.
In addition, the defence had, equally applied for and caused the Danladi Umar-led CCT to issue a subpoena to be served on an officer of the Code of Conduct Bureau, Mrs. Theresa Nwafor, to appear today to testify as the second defence witness.
It was not clear if Nwafor was present at the tribunal when Onnoghen’s lead defence counsel for the today’s proceedings, Chris Uche (SAN), rose to announce the closure of the defendant’s case.
Uche made no mention of Nwafor or any other proposed defence witness. The prosecuting counsel, Aliyu Umar (SAN), said Uche had given him prior indication to close the defence’s case and he urged the tribunal to use its discretion to allot time for the filing of final addresses by the parties. The date for judgment would be fixed after the adoption of the final addresses.
