A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has freed popular nightlife entrepreneur Mike Nwalie, widely known as Pretty Mike, along with his club supervisor Joachim Hillary, after throwing out drug-related charges brought against them by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa delivered the verdict on Wednesday, siding with a no-case submission filed by the defence and ruling that the prosecution had failed to establish even a basic case warranting a response from the accused.
“The evidence placed before the court does not disclose a prima facie case requiring the defendants to enter their defence,” the judge declared, noting that the prosecution’s case, at its strongest, amounted to nothing more than suspicion — which he said falls far short of the threshold for criminal conviction.
The two defendants had faced a three-count charge covering allegations of conspiracy, unlawful possession of hard drugs, and allowing their club premises to be used for illicit activities. The NDLEA had told the court that its operatives raided Pretty Mike’s Proxy Lagos nightclub in Victoria Island on October 26, seizing 169 cylinders of nitrous oxide — commonly called laughing gas — weighing approximately 384kg, as well as 200 grams of cannabis. The agency had argued the substances were stockpiled for an illegal drug party and pushed for the forfeiture of the venue.
However, defence counsel Chikaosolu Ojukwu successfully argued that the prosecution produced no credible evidence directly linking either defendant to the seized substances, their ownership, or any knowledge of their presence on the premises.
Justice Lewis-Allagoa agreed entirely, stating that compelling the defendants to mount a defence would amount to speculation rather than sound judicial reasoning. Both men were subsequently discharged.
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