admissibility of the documents, sought to be tendered by prosecution
witness in the matter involving Abdulrasheed Abdulahi Maina, former
chairman of Pension Reform Task Team, which the defence team had opposed
its admissibility on November 22, 2019 sitting of the court.
Prosecution counsel, M.S Abubakar, had on said date, presented the first
prosecution witness (PW1), Mairo Abdulahi Bashir, a business manager
with the United Bank for Africa, UBA, who gave an account of how he
opened bank accounts for the first defendant and that of a company
allegedly belonging to him (Common Input and Properties Limited) and
sought to tender the accounts documents that included, account opening
packages, bank statements, certification and mandate cards in evidence,
which defence counsel, Francis Orasanye opposed on the grounds that the
documents are ought to tendered by the person who signed them, citing
Section 33 (1) (a) of the Evidence Act which states that a certificate
tendered must be tendered by the maker of the said documents or be
thrown out by the court.
The documents also allegedly contained fictitious financial transactions
in local and foreign currencies traced to Maina.
In his ruling today, Justice Abang said tendering the documents by the
prosecution witness was in compliance with Section 84 of the Evidenced
Act, adding that the person who signed the documents did not act in
personal capacity, but as a representative of UBA.
According to him, since the witness is branch manager of UBA, neither
the UBA nor the witness has interest in the matter before the court.
He admitted the documents in evidence, marked as Exhibits B1, B2 and B3
respectively, and adjourned until November 27, 2019, for continuation of
the trial.