Former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) disagreed on Tuesday about a witness who was supposed to appear in Lamido's trial.
This disagreement took place before Judge Ijeoma Ojukwu at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the EFCC is prosecuting Lamido for alleged money laundering involving N1.35 billion.
The former governor is on trial with his two sons, Aminu and Mustapha, as well as Aminu Wada Abubakar and their companies, Bamaina Holdings Ltd and Speeds International Ltd.
The defendants, through their lawyer Joe Agi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), requested that the EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede, or any official from the commission be summoned to give evidence in their defense after their no-case submission was dismissed.
The defendants had chosen to make a no-case submission after the prosecution closed its case, calling 17 witnesses.
Initially, the chief judge of the court reassigned the case to Judge Peter Lifu after the Supreme Court upheld the trial court's ruling. However, the EFCC insisted that Justice Ojukwu, the original trial judge, should finish the case.
The case was then reassigned back to Mrs. Ojukwu.
When the case came up on Tuesday, Kayode Oyetunde, a staff member and investigator of the EFCC, was called to testify by the EFCC's lawyer, Chile Okoroma, who is also a SAN.
But Mr. Agi asked for an adjournment so he could meet with the subpoenaed witness.
Mr. Okoroma opposed the request for an adjournment.
Instead, he asked the court to pause the proceedings to let the defense speak to the witness since all documents from the witness had already been submitted as evidence.
The judge refused to delay the case and warned that she would dismiss the subpoena if she granted the adjournment.
She later paused the case for an hour to allow the defense to meet with the witness.
When proceedings resumed, the witness was called to the stand.
The witness admitted in court that he was not part of the investigative team and was only told to look for the documents mentioned in the subpoena.
The defense lawyer then said they could not continue because the witness did not know anything about the case.
Mr. Agi argued that the witness cannot give evidence about a case he knows nothing about and asked the EFCC chairman to provide a relevant witness.
However, Mr. Okoroma disagreed with Mr. Agi.
He stated that all documents requested in the subpoena had been provided and that the EFCC is a corporate entity, so anyone could represent it.
He argued that a subpoena is not absolute and the court should not pay attention to the defense's complaints.
In response to a point made by Mr. Agi about one of the prosecution witnesses who had testified, Mrs. Ojukwu advised him to file an application to recall that witness.
She explained that a witness could only be subpoenaed if they refuse to come to court.
After Justice Ojukwu accepted all the subpoena documents as evidence, she adjourned the case until June 4 for the trial to continue.
(NAN)
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