The three United Methodist Church clerics and one member remanded in the National Correctional Center for allegedly spying on the property of the Nigerian Police have been granted bail.
The accused were on June 22, 2021 remanded at the National Correctional Center for breaching the “National Official Secret Act” of photographing the Nigerian Police headquarters and sensitive locations in the command and sent same pictures to foreign partners of the Church.
In the second hearing of the case, Magistrate Bartholome Vakkai Kaigama, who granted bail to the accused at the Hon. Justice Mahmud Mohammed National industrial/Magistrate Court Jalingo, said the accused persons will be granted bail if they meet the condition of the bail which she listed to include: Depositing their international Passports to the Court pending the determination of case by the court.
According to the magistrate, the accused persons will not travel out of the state for more than three weeks without notifying the court and that each of the accused person must provide two gruarantors who must be landlords within Jalingo metropolis and would pay N2m in an event that any of the accused goes missing.
Magistrate Kaigama, however adjourned the case to 19th of July 2021 for further hearing to allow the police carryout their investigations.
One of the accused Pastor, Emmanuel Ande described allegations against him as baseless, insisting that he went to the command on invitation without knowledge that he was being set up.
