Badeh: N4bn bail condition outrageous – Rights group
A coalition of human rights groups – Citizens Watch Nigeria (CWN) and Transparency Movement (TM) – decried the two billion naira condition placed on each of the two sureties to sign-bail documents of former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Vice-Marshal Alex Badeh, describing it as outrageously high and impossible to meet.
In a statement signed by CWN President, Omoba Kenneth Agbegbele and Executive Secretary TM, Faruok Umar, the group said that the bail condition suggested that there was a deliberate ploy not to set Badeh free, because it was difficult, if not impossible, to find Nigerians with such money in our current economy.
The statement read in part, “The so-called bail granted to Badeh is pretentious and deceptive because you cannot grant an accused person bail and at the same time make the bail ineffective.”
The groups urged the relevant judicial authorities to vary the bail conditions imposed for Badeh’s release to be more humane, attainable, realisable and possible, so that Badeh can go home from prison incarceration, because the alleged offences are bailable and an accused person deserves some measures of respect and human dignity in line with the provisions of our constitution, African Charter and the United Nations Charter on Human Rights.
It said that it was disheartening and unfortunate that, a defence icon, Badeh, who served this nation meritoriously and with all his heart, bringing honour and glory to the military and his fatherland could be so humiliated, disgraced and oppressed for his gallantry and service to the country.
It said, besides, that Badeh deserved to be given a fair hearing, self-recognition status for having reformed and repositioned the Nigerian Air Force and his unprecedented achievements in the last decade.
