Ibinabo Fiberesima’s bail Application on Health Reasons Suffers Setback

Actress, National President, Actors’ Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Ibinabo Fiberesima’s bail application to be released pending when the Supreme Court would hear and determine her appeal against the appellate court’s judgment on Thursday suffered set back and tagged ‘incompetent.’

The ex-beauty queen has urged the Supreme Court to set aside the judgment of the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal, which last Friday affirmed the five years’ imprisonment imposed on her by a Lagos State High Court. In a six-paragraph affidavit of urgency filed in support of her bail application, one Victor Eden said Fibresima had just undergone surgery to remove breast cancer. Eden said the surgical wound had yet to heal, adding that the actress was afraid that her life might be endangered if kept in prison custody. Eden said, "Her (Fiberesima) wound has not fully healed and, as such, she is afraid that her continued stay in the prison may endanger her life as she will not have access to a proper medical attention.

"It will be in the interest of justice and for her health and safety for the appellant to be admitted to bail pending the hearing and determination of the appellant’s appeal before the Supreme Court." But the bail application suffered a setback on Thursday as the Court of Appeal decided it was ‘incompetent’. Fiberesima’s lawyer, Nnaemeka Amaechina, had told the appellate court panel comprising Justices U.I. Ndukwe-Anyanwu, Samuel Oseji and Tijani Abubakar that he had served the bail application on the Lagos State Government, which is the respondent in the appeal. But Justice Ndukwe-Anyanwu, who led the panel, observed that copies of the court judgments leading to Fiberesima’s conviction and sentence were not attached to the bail application.
The judge said failure to attach the judgments had rendered the application incompetent, adding that the options left to the court in the circumstance were to either strike out the bail application or adjourn for the appellant to do the needful. Amaechina opted for an adjournment to enable him to “do the needful”. The panel consequently adjourned till April 7 to hear the application.