Dasuki approved $40m Janothan’s cousin payment – witness

A prosecution witness, Mr Ibrahim Maye told a Federal high court, in Abuja, on Tuesday, that the former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd),instructed him to prepare a payment mandate of 40 million dollars in favour of One Plus Limited owned by Jonathan cousin, Mr Azibaola Roberts and his wife Stella.

The Roberts are standing trial on a seven count charges of laundering $40 million to which they have pleaded not guilty before Justice Nnamdi Dimgba on June 8.

Testifying at the resumed trial on Tuesday, the first witness, Maye, a retired Permanent Secretary at the Special Service Office in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, told the court that Dasuki endorsed a memo to him with details of the company’s account.

He said the memo was sent to him in his capacity as the Permanent Secretary, Special Service Office, a department in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

His words, “On August 20, 2014, the NSA endorsed a memo to me which originated from the director of finance and administration in the office of the NSA giving bank details of a company called One Plus limited.

“The memo also gave details of the purpose for which the company was to be paid the sum of 40 million dollars.

“The NSA instructed me to prepare payment and my understanding of that was that I should prepare the payment and mandate for One Plus for his signature,” he further told the court.

“After I got the memo, I prepared the payment mandate, sent it to him, he signed and sent it back to me,” he said.

“The subsequent necessary action was for me to counter sign, which I did and I sent it to the CBN for payment,” Maye  said.

Earlier before Maye’s testimony, lead counsel to the Roberts, Mr. Chris Uche (SAN), had urged the court for a short adjournment to enable him hold discussions with his clients.

According to Uche, he and the defendants have not the ample time to meet since the court  granted them bail, adding that he need to prepare his defence.

Uche  said that his team had difficulties in perfecting the bail conditions until last week.

He said they needed more time to prepare their defence because there were some documents that they needed to subpoenaed from the office of the NSA.

He also sighted his in disposition as part of the reasons his team was asking for an adjournment.

The prosecuting counsel, Mr. Sylvanus Tahir objected to the application on the grounds that they had a witness already in court who was stopped from going on lesser hajj on account of the trial.

Tahir said that they had prevailed on the witness to postpone his trip and not allowing him to give his testimony would amount to a waste of effort.

On the issue of in disposition, Tahir said the defence had about 19 other lawyers on the team and so even without the lead counsel, trial could commence.

Trial judge, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba agreed with the prosecution that trial should commence since the defence had sufficient time to prepare their defence.

The matter has been adjourned to July 4 and 5 for continuation of trial.