Court Accepts Emefiele's Statements in $4.5bn Fraud Case

The Lagos State Special Offences Court in Ikeja admitted the extra-judicial statements made by former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele in his trial for alleged abuse of office. This happened on Thursday.

Justice Rahman Oshodi accepted these statements as evidence, allowing the main trial to continue. He marked the statements as Exhibit K31 after deciding they could be used in the ongoing case.

The judge then postponed the case until 6 October for the trial to continue. Emefiele and his co-defendant, Henry Omoile, are facing 22 charges in total.

Nineteen of these charges against Emefiele involve receiving bribes, making corrupt demands, and abusing his position in transactions worth $4.5 billion and N2.8 billion. Omoile faces three charges for accepting gifts unlawfully.

The court had planned to decide on the admissibility of the statements on 9 July. This followed a challenge from Emefiele’s lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. Mr Ojo claimed the statements were not given freely.

He argued that they were obtained through oppression and torture while Emefiele was in detention. The lawyer said the State Security Service had held Emefiele for over 157 days.

Ojo referred to the Anti-Torture Act of 2017 and relevant sections of the Evidence Act in his argument. "The issue before this honourable court is whether the statements credited to the first defendant were made voluntarily," he said.

He also stated that video recordings of the interrogations would be the best proof of following due process. He insisted that without such recordings, the statements should be seen as unreliable and not allowed in court.

Mr Ojo questioned the role of the lawyer who witnessed the interviews and asked the court to dismiss the statements. But the prosecution opposed these claims.

The Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation, Rotimi Oyedepo, called an EFCC investigator, Alvan Gurumnaan, to testify. Gurumnaan told the court that the EFCC invited Emefiele for questioning while his lawyer was present.

He said the interviews took place in the presence of Emefiele’s legal representative. Mr Oyedepo argued that a trial-within-trial was not needed. He stressed that the statements were not confessions.

"There is nothing in the defendant’s statements that can be construed as an admission," he said. This trial is one of several cases against Emefiele regarding corruption and fraud he allegedly committed while in office. He has other charges pending in different courts in Abuja.