Sani Teidi, a former director, Pension Accounts, in the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation who is standing trial over missing N5.7 billion pension funds has begged the court to reduce the initial bail terms of N500 million and two sureties to N100 million and a surety in like sum.

His counsel, Sunday Ameh, told an Abuja Federal High Court on Monday that his client cannot perfect his bail as a result of the stringent terms.

“The essence of our application is for the court to review the terms downward; the accused person has remained in prison for about five months even though you graciously granted him bail,” he said.

He assured that Teidi woud not escape justice if the bail terms are relaxed as prayed.

Justice Adeniyi Ademola had on June 19, granted Teidi and Udusegbe Eric, the second accused in the case, bail in the sum of N500 million with two sureties in like sum.

Adewale Servile, counsel to Udesegbe aligned himself with the pleading for the downward review of the bail terms for his client.

According to him, the second accused person had also remained in custody for about five months even after he obtained bail from the court.

“It is our sincere prayer that the court should have a re-think to reduce the terms to a tolerable level in the interest of justice. We are therefore demanding that the second accused person be allowed to perfect his bail with N10 million and like sum and a surety respectively,” he said.

The prosecutor, Godwin Obla, did not raise substantial objections on the two applications but urged the court to apply wisdom and law when reducing the bail terms.

“Granting of bail has always been at the discretion of the court, but when doing so, it must be judicially and judiciously applied in line with the peculiarity of the case. In this case, the allegations are weighty and the amount in question declared missing is equally huge,” he said.

After hearing from all sides, Justice Ademola fixed November 28 to rule in applications.