Sule Lamido and EFCC Clash Over Witness in N1.35bn Fraud Case

Former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) clashed on Tuesday over a witness who was summoned to appear in Lamido's trial.

This 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), had requested that the EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede, or any official from the commission be called to give evidence in their defence after their no-case submission was rejected.

They had chosen to make a no-case submission after the prosecution finished its case by calling 17 witnesses. Although the case was initially reassigned to Judge Peter Lifu by the chief judge of the court following a Supreme Court judgement, the EFCC insisted that Justice Ojukwu, the original trial judge, should continue the matter.

The case was later sent back to Mrs Ojukwu. On Tuesday, Kayode Oyetunde, a staff member and investigator at the EFCC, was called by the anti-graft agency’s lawyer, Chile Okoroma, also a SAN, to testify.

However, Agi requested an adjournment so he could meet with the subpoenaed witness. Okoroma opposed the adjournment request.

Instead, the prosecution lawyer asked the court to pause proceedings to let the defence access the witness since all documents from the witness had already been submitted before the court as evidence.

The judge refused to grant the adjournment and warned that she would strike out the subpoena if the request was approved. She then paused the case for an hour to allow the defence to meet with the witness.

When the proceedings resumed, the witness was brought into the witness box. The witness admitted in court that he was not part of the investigative team and was only told to look for the documents requested in the subpoena.

The defence lawyer then stated he could not continue as the witness had no knowledge of the case. Agi argued that the witness could not provide evidence in a case he knew nothing about and urged the EFCC chairman to present a relevant witness.

Okoroma disagreed with Agi’s argument. He said all requested documents had been provided and that the EFCC is a corporate body, so anyone could represent it.

He argued that a subpoena is not absolute and the court should not take the defence complaints seriously. In response to Agi’s reference to a prosecution witness who had testified, Mrs Ojukwu advised him to file an application for that witness to be recalled.

She stated that a witness could only be subpoenaed if they refuse to come to court. After Justice Ojukwu accepted all the documents from the subpoena as evidence, she adjourned the case until June 4 for the trial to continue.