The officials of the Kuje Correctional Facility have tendered the medical report of the ‘psychiatric evaluation’ of Obiajulu Uja, a supporter of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, who opposed the May 29 inauguration of President Bola Tinubu before the Zuba Magistrate Court in Abuja.
It was gathered the medical report, which was signed by the Kuje Prison Chief Medical Officer, suggested that Uja has a mental disorder.
At the last sitting of the court, the trial judge, Magistrate Abdulazeez Muhammad, subpoenaed (summoned) the Controller General of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) alongside the Head and Chief Medical Officer of the Kuje correctional centre to appear before the court for disobeying the court’s order on the Chief Medical Officer of Kuje prison to “provide his opinion in writing as to the state of mind of Uja, who is said to be mentally-challenged”
Muhammad had, in a ruling on April 20, 2023, after scrutinising a medical report by one Dr. Olusegun Shoyombo, a Consultant Psychiatrist at the National Hospital Abuja, on the mental sanity of Uja, said: “… Accordingly, it is hereby ordered that the defendant be remanded at Kuje Correctional facility for one month for medical observation. The medical personnel shall accord the defendant the requisite and required medical treatment at the expense of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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“The medical officer shall provide to the court his opinion in writing as to the state of mind of the defendant, during the period of his remand and before the expiration of that period.”
When the anti-Tinubu protesters’ case came up on Tuesday, June 13, the Kuje Correctional Facility’s officials tendered their ‘medical opinion’, which suggested that the defendant is mentally unstable.
“The court, in the interest of justice, served on all the parties the said medical opinion, and also invited parties and the most senior lawyer, who was not a party, but who was present in the court for a different matter, to address it on proper position to take, bearing in mind the provisions of sections 278 to 292 of the ACJA 2015, and the extant laws which deal with the trial of persons of unsound mind.
“In the interest of justice, the matter was adjourned to the 15th day of June, 2023 for the continuation of hearing,” a lawyer, who witnessed the proceeding at the Zuba Magistrate Court, told PRNigeria.
Uja, in April 2023, was carried off a Lagos-Abuja flight, after he started a lone protest, demanding that President Tinubu (then President-elect) must never be sworn in as president on May 29.
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