At last, Dasuki’s trial begins
Several months after rigmarole and unresolved legal bottlenecks, the federal government, on Wednesday, commenced trial of former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd) with an agent of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) testifying as prosecution first witness.
Dasuki; Aminu Baba-Kusa; Salisu Shuaibu, a former Director of Finance, ONSA; and two companies, Acacia Holdings Ltd and Reliance Referral Hospital, were arraigned before Justice Hussain Baba Yusuf of the Federal High Court in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for allegedly diverting $2.1 billion arms fund.
The defendants were arraigned on December 15, 2015 but since then, full blown trial had been stalled.
However, the trial got underway yesterday with the federal government opening its case against the defendants.
Prosecution counsel called his first witness, Adariku Michael, an operative of the EFCC, who gave a graphic testimony of how funds were transferred from the ONSA account in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to some banks.
Adariku Michael said he came to know about the case via an information he received from the ONSA on September 22, 2015, “alleging abuse of office and money laundering.”
“When we received the report, we moved into action immediately same day we got the report. We wrote a letter of investigation activity to the CBN for us to confirm the allegation regarding the movement of funds from accounts of ONSA to various companies.
“On September 22, 2015, we received a response from the CBN and analysed same. Our analysis showed movement of funds to various companies some of which includes Arcacia Holdings Ltd.
“Our findings showed that Arcacia has two accounts, one in UBA and another with Ecobank. We found out that Arcacia account with UBA received the sum of N600 million from ONSA account in CBN, while the second account with Ecobank got N650 million.
He stated that after the analysis, “we wrote to the CBN to furnish us with account statements of these companies.
“We wrote to UBA, Ecobank and First Bank in respect of Arcacia Holdings Ltd and Reliance Referral Hospital.
The witness said the EFCC also wrote to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to get the status of those companies, adding that responses were received and equally analysed.
“We wrote to First Bank to confirm movement of funds to Reliance Referral Hospital from account of the ONSA with CBN.
“We confirmed that N750 million was paid from the ONSA account to the hospital.
Michael also testified that when he got the response of the CAC, “analysis showed that the principal shareholder/owner is one Aminu Baba-Kusa, the 3rd defendant.
“When we discovered that, we wrote a letter inviting the 3rd defendant and other persons whose names featured in the response that we received from the CAC.
“They reported to our office and we confronted them with those documents we have and they offered to make statements voluntarily,” the prosecution witness told the court.
The documents were showed to him by the prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacob (SAN), and he identified them all.
Consequently, all the documents were tendered in evidence by the lawyer to the federal government.
However, Ahmed Raji (SAN) representing Dasuki, Solomon Umoh (SAN), counsel for the 3rd defendant and other defence counsels all objected to the admissibility of the documents on the basis that they were not in compliance with provisions of Sections 104 and 84 of the Evidence Act.
In his submission, Raji urged the court not to admit the documents in evidence because “they are computer generated statement of accounts and not certified as required under Section 84 of the Evidence Act.
Reacting, the federal government lawyer urged the court to dismiss the objection of the defendants.
Jacobs explained that the letter from CAC was original and duly certified by the Registrar General, Aisha Tijjani.
On the account statements from the three banks, Jacobs informed the court that they were all certified.
“In respect of First Bank documents, one Onyeka Okoh certified the letter while Martin Sini certified those of Ecobank,” adding that “all the documents are attached to the principal (original) documents from the banks.
In a short ruling, Justice Baba Yusuf overruled the objection of the defendants and admitted all the documents in evidence.
The matter has been adjourned to March 16 and 17, 2017 for continuation of testimony of the star witness.
