The trial started on 18 November 2021.
Former BBNaija housemate Anita Akide, popularly known as Tacha, is facing charges of disorderly behaviour and turning the Murtala Muhammed International Airport into a public nuisance.
Tacha appeared before the trial court, a magistrate's court in Ogba, a suburb of Lagos, on Friday, in a trial that only came to the attention of the press on Friday after over two years of quiet criminal proceedings instituted against the TV reality show star by the Lagos State Government.
The charges accused her of creating chaos during her encounter with health officials and leading other passengers to resist the officials at the airport in May 2021.
The Lagos State Government charged the 2019 BBNaija Season 4 housemate on 3 August 2021, accusing her of violating the state's public health and broader criminal laws.
She was arraigned in August 2021, denying any wrongdoing by pleading not guilty to the two counts filed against her.
The trial started on 18 November 2021, and the prosecution went on to call its witnesses against her, PREMIUM TIMES learnt.
After the prosecution closed its case, Tacha's legal team requested to file a no-case submission to urge the magistrate to dismiss the charges on the grounds of the alleged failure of the prosecution to present any credible evidence to support its case.
Her lawyers argued that it would be pointless for the court to direct her to enter defence when the prosecution had failed to establish any wrongdoing against her during the presentation of its case.
Her lawyers were directed by the court to file and serve her no-case submission on the prosecution, which would, in turn, file its response and serve it on the defence.
Friday was fixed for a hearing, and the case was to be adjourned for a ruling on Tacha's request to dismiss the case against her.
But at Friday's proceeding, the prosecutor, Dare Dada, pleaded with the court to adjourn the hearing.
He said he only received a filing from Tacha's legal team that morning and would need time to file his response.
He requested that the matter be adjourned until 4 March to afford him enough time to file a robust response.
However, the magistrate, Folashade Hughes, expressed concerns over the length of time the prosecutor requested to file his response. She said the two-month period requested for such a filing "was unnecessarily too long".
But she bent backwards to adjourn until 14 March.
The court's ruling on a no-case submission such as the one filed by Tacha can go any way.
The court may dismiss the charges as requested by the defence or order the defendant to enter his or her defence if the prosecution is found to have led credible evidence that casts sufficient doubts on the defendant's innocence.
Charges against Tacha
Tacha is facing two counts in the trial that stemmed from a likely rough encounter she had with health officials at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, in May 2021.
The charges captured on one page seen by PREMIUM TIMES do not have the details of the circumstances leading to the situation alleged in the case.
But the prosecutor said it took place at about 5 a.m. on 27 May 2021 at the Port Health Official Desk of the international airport.
The government alleged in one of the charges that she conducted herself "in a manner injurious to the health of the citizens of Lagos State, thereby committing "a Nuisance".
By doing so, the prosecution alleged that she committed an offence contrary to Section 6(m) of the Public Health Law, 2015, and punishable under Section 58 of the same law.
In the second count, she was accused of conducting herself in a disorderly manner by forcefully snatching her passport and leading "some other passengers to resist the team of Health Officials led by Dr Abimbola Bowale, Officials of the Lagos State Ministry of Health in the discharge of their lawful duties".
The charge described the alleged conduct as "unruly and likely to cause a breach of public peace", a conduct the prosecution said was contrary to Section 168(1)(d) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015 and punishable under section 168(2) of the law.
Possible punishments
The provisions under which the two offences were charged are not strict about imprisonment as punishment.
They give the trial judge or magistrate the discretion to decide to imprison the offender on conviction as an option.
Tacha was charged under section 6(m) of the Public Health Law of Lagos State, 2015, which stipulates one of the ways a place can be deemed to have become a nuisance.
This provision says "any premise certified by the health officer to be overcrowded and injurious or dangerous to the health of the occupier" is "deemed to be a nuisance".
The prosecution alleged in the first count against the celebrity that she "committed a Nuisance" contrary to the cited law and that the offence is punishable under section 58 of the same law.
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Section 58 of the law cited by the prosecution as the punishment provision, which provides for "general penalties". It stipulates N100,000 fine or any other custodial sentence as punishment for a convicted offender and NN500,000 for a convicted corporate body.
The second count against Tacha, which accused her of snatching her passport from a Lagos State health official, a conduct the prosecution said was "unruly and likely to cause a breach of public peace," was charged under section 168(1)(d) the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
The provision says, "Every person in any public place conducts himself in a manner likely to cause a breach of peace."
Section 168(2) of the law was cited in the charge as the punishment provision. It provides for "a fine of fifteen thousand Naira (N15,000)" for the first offence, and for subsequent offences ", a fine of forty-five thousand Naira (N45,000) or imprisonment for three months or both."
Tacha was disqualified from the BBNaija reality show in September 2021 for assaulting her housemate, Mercy. She would later represent Nigeria and Africa in MTV's The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies reality show in the same year.
