Court adjourns Goje’s N6bn fraud case until July 4

The Federal High Court sitting in Jos on Friday further adjourned the alleged N6 billion alleged fraud case labelled against former Gombe state Governor, Senator Danjuma Goje by the attorney general of the federation.

Before now, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been prosecuting the case for nearly eight years until June 7, when it handed over the case file to the office of the attorney general of the federation.

The EFCC had filed a 21 -count charge against the ex-governor alleging that he fraudulently diverted N25 billion of state funds, an amount which was later narrowed down to N6 billion.

Also, the commission struck out 19 of the 21 charges leaving only two counts even as Goje’s made a no case submission at the last hearing date.

When the case came up for hearing on Friday before Justice Quadiri, Pius Akutah, an assistant chief state counsel in office of attorney general of the federation applied for a short adjournment to enable him study the case file.
“My Lord, l wish to confirm to this court that the EFCC has formally forwarded the case file to us haven taken over the matter from them on June 7.

“We are aware that on that day, June 7, the case was adjourned for further hearing, but because we are still studying the case file to have full grasp of the entire matter, we shall be asking for a short adjournment,” Akutah pleaded.

Counsel to Goje, Aladele Oyelami, did not object to the application for adjournment, saying “my Lord, on our part we are not objecting to the application made by the prosecution counsel.”

Justice Quadiriafter listening to the counsels however adjourned the case to July 4 for further hearing.