A federal high court in Abuja has granted bail to Abba Kyari, suspended deputy commissioner of police (DCP), for two weeks.

Kyari has been in detention since his arrest in February 2022.

In the ruling delivered on Tuesday, Emeka Nwite, the presiding judge, said the bail is to enable Kyari to conclude the burial rites of his mother, Yachilla Kyari, who died on May 5.

The judge ruled that Kyari should deposit his international passport with the court and report to any National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) formation nearest to him, within the period of the bail.

The judge fixed May 31 for the determination of Kyari’s main application for bail in the drug trafficking charge.

Kyari was arrested on February 14, 2022, after the NDLEA declared him wanted over alleged links with an international drug cartel.

On March 7, 2022, Kyari was arraigned alongside Sunday Ubia, Bawa James, Simon Agirigba, and John Nuhu, who are members of the police intelligence response team (IRT).

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Others are Chibunna Patrick Umeibe and Emeka Alphonsus Ezenwanne, two suspected drug traffickers who were arrested at Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu.

Upon arraignment, Kyari and four other defendants pleaded not guilty.

However, Umeibe and Ezenwanne, the sixth and seventh defendants, pleaded guilty and were convicted accordingly.

Since then, applications by the defendants to be released on bail have been rejected.

The presiding judge refused to grant the defendants bail twice after they argued that their lives were being threatened by criminals whom Kyari’s team arrested.

The court of appeal in Abuja also dismissed Kyari’s appeal for bail.

In a sister case, the suspended DCP is also standing trial on a 24-count charge alongside his two siblings – Mohammed Kyari and Ali Kyari – over non-disclosure of assets.

The defendants were granted bail in that case. However, the judge noted that Kyari’s release from prison custody is dependent on what happens in the drug trafficking case.

The Police, on Wednesday, said that divers were battling to recover the body of a 30-year-old man who allegedly drowned at the Elegushi Beach, Lagos, where he had gone for prayers.

The Lagos Police Command spokesperson, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, disclosed this to newsmen.

He said that a report to the police indicated that the man, simply identified as Samuel, had gone to pray at the beach with his friends.

Hundeyin said that the case was reported to the Ilasan Police Division at about 7.20 a.m. on Tuesday by a man whose name was not mentioned.

Hundeyin said that the man’s report revealed that on Tuesday, at midnight, he and three of his friends left Igbesan in Ogun to Elegushi Beach, Lekki for prayers.

The image maker said that the report stated that during the prayer session, at about 4.00 a.m., one of the friends, named Samuel, 30, allegedly drowned.

“The scene was promptly visited by detectives of the division and effort is in progress by divers to recover the corpse.

“The family members of the deceased have been contacted and the investigation is ongoing,” he said.

An Ekiti State High Court has sentenced 45-year-old Alabi Oluwafemi to 15 years imprisonment for raping an eight-year-old minor in 1999.

According to the charge, Oluwafemi sometime in 1999 at Ikere Ekiti, did rape an eight-year-old girl.

The victim, in his testimony, said: “The defendant was my teacher and our neighbour. He touched my breast each time he came to teach me at home, I did not understand anything about what he was doing until he raped me in our sitting room when my mother travelled to Lagos and left me and my sister at home.

“He removed my cloth and used it to clean the blood and sperm and threw it away, I later ran to our neighbours weeping, they thought I was missing my mother but I did not tell them what happened.

“Thereafter, I dropped out of school because I could no longer concentrate on my studies. I was afraid anytime I saw him in the class. He came across me on Facebook sometime in the year 2012, he sent me a friend request and I declined.

“In the year 2023 again, he started disturbing me, I reported the matter to the law enforcement agents, and I was advised to ignore him. Thereafter, he started sending disturbing and annoying videos and messages to me, referring to the past ugly incident. When I could no longer bear it, I decided to take legal action against him.”

To prove his case, the prosecutor, Kunle-Shina Adeyemi, called two witnesses and tendered a confessional statement of the defendant, a flash drive of the defendant’s conversations with the nominal complainant, a petition and printout from screenshots of chats among others as exhibits.

In his judgment, Justice Lekan Ogunmoye said the sexual intercourse with the victim could not have been consensual. She, as an eight-year-old girl, was a minor and could not consent to sexual intercourse.

This issue is resolved in favour of the prosecution and the defendant is found guilty as charged, Ogunmoye said.