The National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Professor Sodiq Abubakar, has explained why a Magistrate Court sitting in Wuse Zone 2, Abuja, adjourned the party’s criminal case against its former national chairman, Shehu Gabam, till July 20th, 2026. Speaking with a judicial journalist shortly after the hearing on Wednesday, Abubakar revealed that the court shifted the date due to the party’s sudden inability to provide key financial documents vital to the prosecution.
The political leader stated that the current leadership applied to a commercial Nigerian bank for its official account statement, which the institution has not yet delivered. Consequently, the party had to use the court registry to issue a legal subpoena, compelling the financial institution to provide the bulky statement within a week.
The legal bottleneck has delayed proceedings in the high-profile corruption case that has gripped the opposition party. Former chairman Gabam was formally arraigned in May 2026 in a suit numbered DCC/10/2026 over the alleged misappropriation of public party funds.
Subpoena issued to secure missing financial records
“The case has been adjourned to 20th July next month as a result of our inability to lay our hands on one of the key documents that are going to be tendered for the case, which is the bank statement,” Abubakar stated to reporters.
The party chairman explained that the bank could not instantly produce the requested document because it contains numerous pages covering several years of transactions. He noted that the bank branches must still obtain administrative clearance and official stamps from their corporate headquarters before releasing the files.
“The bank said because it’s involved a lot of, you know, pages, the document is bulky, so they need time, and they have to stamp it after getting the approval from the headquarters, so they asked for one week before they would be able to lay that document for us. As a result of that, we informed the court and the court tried to ask us to keep the date, and now the date has been adjourned to the 20th of next month for continuation of the hearing,” Abubakar added.
This judicial update relies on direct courtroom observations documented by DAILY POST and monitored by correspondents at Vanguard News.
