Justice C.A. Balogun of a Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja, on
February 2, 2021 admitted in evidence more documents against Abubakar
Ali Peters, and his company, Nadabo Energy who are both standing trial
for an alleged N1.4 billion oil subsidy fraud.
Peters and his company are being prosecuted by the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC for allegedly using forged documents
to obtain N1, 464,961,978.24 from the Federal Government as oil subsidy
after allegedly inflating the quantity of premium motor spirit, PMS
purportedly supplied to 14,000MT.
They pleaded “not guilty” to the charge preferred against them.
At today’s sitting, Justice Balogun admitted in evidence, four
documents, which the prosecuting counsel, S.K. Atteh on January 26, 2021
sought to tender against the defendant through the prosecution witness,
Abdulrasheed Bawa.
Bawa had identified two investigation activities letters written to
Staco Insurance in the course of investigating the alleged fraud, and
also the responses received from the Insurance Company. The witness had
alleged that the Certificate of marine insurance used by the defendant
for the transaction in question was forged.
But, the defence raised objection to the “tendering and admissibility”
of the documents.
However, Justice Balogun overruled the objection and admitted the
letters from the EFCC to Staco Insurance as Exhibit M1 and M2, and the
response from Staco Insurance along with its attachment (including the
original certificate of insurance) as Exhibit M3 and M4.
Continuing with his testimony, Bawa told the Court that “the value on
the forged documents states that the amount to be insured based on the
cargo was $17,205,000 (United States Dollar).”
According to Bawa, “the real certificate of marine insurance as
indicated in exhibit M3 which has same insurance number 0047851 with
same date of 25th October 2011 was for $4,780,128 (United States
Dollar), which is the value of the actual importation of 4,800 MT by the
defendant”.
Testifying further, Bawa told the Court that in the course of
investigation, “we interviewed a gentleman, Ullrich Afini Awani of
Global Commodities Africa who happened to be the African agent of Sea
Tanker based in France and who are the owners of MT St Vanessa, the
daughter vessel used by the defendant.”
He further revealed that Awani confirmed that “one Mr. Jide Ofor Akpan
was the broker of the said vessel during the said transaction”.
Thereafter, the prosecution sought to tender the email correspondence
between the witness and Awani along with a certificate of
identification.
The defence, led by E.O. Isiramen, holding the brief of J.B. Daudu, SAN,
however raised objection to the admissibility of the documents.
The case has been adjourned till February 10, 16, 23 and March 9, 2021
for “continuation of hearing”.