Officials of the Kuje Correctional Facility have tendered before the Zuba Magistrate Court, the medical report of the ‘psychiatric evaluation’ of Mr. Obiajulu Uja, an ‘OBIdient supporter’ who had opposed the May 29 inauguration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
This was according to a report issued by PRNigeria, who learnt that the medical report, signed by the Kuje Prison Chief Medical Officer, suggested that Uja has a mental disorder.
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At the last sitting of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Magistrate Court, the trial judge, Magistrate Abdulazeez Ismail Muhammad, subpoenaed (summoned) the Controller General of the Nigerian Correctional Service, NCoS; together with the Head and Chief Medical Officer of the Kuje Correctional Centre to appear in 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”
Magistrate Ismail Muhammad had, in a ruling on April 20, 2023, after scrutinizing a medical report by one Dr. Olusegun Shoyombo, a Consultant Psychiatrist at the National Hospital Abuja, on the mental sanity of the OBIdient supporter, 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.
“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”.
“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 today, the Kuje Correctional Facility’s officials tendered their ‘medical opinion’, which suggested that the defendant is mentally unstable.
A lawyer who witnessed the proceeding at the Zuba Magistrate Court, told PRNigeria that:
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.
Mr Uja, in early April, was carried off a Lagos-Abuja flight, after he started a lone protest, demanding that President Bola Tinubu (then President-Elect) must never be sworn in as president on May 29.
