SaharaReporters learned that the Chief Magistrate also asked the police to stop prosecuting him.
Seun Kuti was released on bail by the Yaba Chief Magistrate Court.
The court also ordered the Nigerian police to finish their investigation into Kuti’s claimed policeman attack in 48 hours and let him go home.
The judge gives police 48 hours to finish “their investigations” before releasing Kuti on bail.
A witness stated that Kuti’s bail requires two Lagos-based landed property owners.
SaharaReporters learned that the Chief Magistrate also asked the police to stop prosecuting him.
She ordered the case file to be duplicated and sent to the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecutions for prosecution.
SaharaReporters stated that police prosecutors told the Magistrate Court that the assaulted policeman was in a coma and being treated at an unidentified facility.
A witness told SaharaReporters, “The Chief Magistrate Ms. Adeola Olatunbosun Magistrate Court 1 Yaba took a statement from the Nigerian police seeking to arrest Seun Kuti for 21 days, alleging the policeman he reportedly beat is in a coma at an unidentified hospital.
Kuti’s lawyer, Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika, disputed that the police had acknowledged publicly that the police officer tailed and went to Seun’s residence and accepted N12,000 to fix his car. The Panti DCP had met the Magistrate earlier before surreptitiously transporting Seun to the court without alerting his lawyer.
Olumide-Fusika said he was there when Seun wrote a statement. “Studying the paperwork” led the Chief Magistrate to break.
The Magistrate Court began the session at 12 pm, but Seun Kuti and his lawyers, who had learned of the secret arraignment, were already there.
The police took Seun Kuti to the Yaba Magistrate Court without telling his lawyers. “Seun and his lawyers are in court by midday, but the magistrate is sitting,” a source said.
SaharaReporters said that Kuti told the police in Yaba, Lagos State, that he would not offer any testimony since the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Benjamin Hundeyin, had already ended his inquiry and published the same information in the media.
On Tuesday morning, Kuti’s lawyer, Olumide-Fusika, SAN, said he would defend himself “at the correct time and place” against Hundeyin’s “investigative conclusions.”
On Monday night, SaharaReporters reported that the Lagos State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Panti, refused Seun Kuti bail after they failed to get him to write a statement implicating him in a police officer assault case.
SaharaReporters learned that his lawyer requested bail for the musician, but the police denied it since they were still investigating.
Seun Kuti, son of Fela Kuti, was arrested and handcuffed Monday after visiting the state police headquarters.
SaharaReporters previously reported that the musician kept his word and turned himself up on Monday to cooperate with the police inquiry over the viral video of him assaulting a police officer.
He was arrested, handcuffed, and taken to SCIID Panti for questioning.
