ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- In the ongoing trial of former Ekiti State governor Ayodele Fayose, the 13th prosecution witness, Abubakar Madaki, revealed that former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki gave Fayose N1.2 billion cash to disguise the source of the funds.
Fayose is facing an 11-count charge of money laundering and stealing alongside Spotless Investment Limited.
The Lagos Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had re-arraigned Fayose and Spotless Investment Limited on July 2, 2019, before Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos.
In a statement by the EFCC spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, the defendants were first arraigned on October 22, 2018, before Justice Mojisola Olatoregun.
Earlier in the proceedings, a former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, had told the Judge that he was instructed by Dasuki to transfer N1.2 billion to Fayose from an account used as Boko Haram Special Intervention Account.
According to Obanikoro, the N1.2 billion was initially transferred from the imprest account of the NSA into the intervention account.
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Madaki, an investigator with the EFCC, had also informed the court that contrary to Fayose’s statement that the money was a campaign donation from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), investigation revealed that the fund was from the office of the NSA and that it was budgeted for the purchase of security equipment.
The statement noted that Madaki at the resumed sitting on Monday, July 1, 2024, under cross-examination by counsel to the second defendant , Olalekan Ojo, SAN, testified that there was no transaction relevant to the charge when the first defendant personally made it.
When asked if he remembered telling the court that he did not witness any of the transactions in the case, Madaki replied that “I only said it was in the course of the investigations.”
When the PW 13 was also asked if all conclusions made available to the court, including the investigations made in respect to the charge, were based on facts, he said, “ Yes, including documents recovered in the course of investigations”
In his response to an enquiry about one “Eruka”, Madaki stated that a statement was also obtained from him during investigations.
However, when the defence counsel sought to know if the said Eruka was in Abuja on the same day as claimed by Obanikoro, the prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, SAN, raised an objection, saying the witness could not be made to “give evidence on an extra-judicial statement of a dead man, which was merely tendered.”
The trial judge in his ruling, held that the witness should answer the question in the interest of justice.
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But in response, the witness said:” I can’t find the part where it was stated.”
When asked if he saw any document where Fayose had acknowledged receipt of any amount of Dollars from Obanikoro, the witness said: ”No”.
The witness under cross-examination by counsel to the 1st defendant, Ola Olanipekun, SAN, confirmed his earlier evidence that the sum of N4.6 billion was transferred by Dasuki to one Sivan Macnamara.
He explaned that the transfer was done by the Office of the NSA from its imprest account to Macnamara’s Diamond Bank account.
However, when Olanipekun put it to him that he said payment was made from NSA to Macnamara and that part of the money was meant to be transferred to the first defendant, he reacted, saying, “I never said transfer; I said it was meant for the first defendant.”
At the point, the defense counsel sought to know if the witness investigated why the transfer was not made to the first defendant if the funds were meant for him.
Responding, he said: “Questions were asked and investigations showed that it was meant to disguise the source of the money; so, it was given by cash to avoid traces”.
The case however, was adjourned for continuation of trial, to July 19, 2024, October 17 and 18, 2024.