Pension scam: Suspended Judge resumes After one year of serving suspension embattled Justice Abubakar Talba of a Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Gudu yesterday resumed duty over his alleged role in the controversial judgment he delivered on the N27bn pension fraud. Justice Talba resumed on May 2. One of the court clarks that spoke to Nigerian pilot told our correspondent that the judge, had since his resumption, been giving priority to criminal cases which were at advance stages before he was suspended by the National Judicial Council on April 26, 2013. The judge was suspended for the light sentence he imposed on a former Assistant Director of the Police Pension Office, Mr. John Yakubu Yusuf, who admitted conniving with others to defraud the PPO and pensioners of N27.2bn. Justice Talba had in his judgment delivered on January 29, 2013, sentenced Yusuf to only two years imprisonment with an option of N750,000 fine. A public outcry had followed the judgment, a development which informed an investigation into the judge’s verdict by the NJC. The NJC, rising from a two-day meeting, recommended in its findings that Talba should proceed on a one-year suspension without pay for “unreasonable exercise of judicial discretion” in his judgment. Justice Talba also sat yeaterday. The court clark further added that the cases which the judge had been handling since his resumption were not re-assigned because they had reached concluding stages, and assigning them to a new judge would have meant that the matters would start afresh instead of delivering judgement.
Posted on: Thu, 15 May 2014 16:30:05 +0000
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