{"id":74076,"date":"2020-06-10T19:23:34","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T18:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=74076"},"modified":"2020-06-10T19:23:34","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T18:23:34","slug":"n500m-grass-cutting-scandal-court-to-rule-on-eligibility-of-witness-july-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/news\/n500m-grass-cutting-scandal-court-to-rule-on-eligibility-of-witness-july-6\/","title":{"rendered":"N500m Grass-cutting Scandal: Court to Rule on Eligibility of Witness, July 6"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Justice Jude Okeke of Federal Capital Territory High Court, on<\/div>\n
\n
Wednesday, June 10, 2020, slated July 6, 2020, for ruling on the
\neligibility of a prosecution witness to testify in the on-going trial of
\nformer Secretary to Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal for
\nalleged N500 million (Five Hundred Million Naira), grass-cutting scam.<\/p>\n

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is prosecuting
\nLawal, his younger brother, Hamidu David Lawal, one Suleiman Abubakar
\nand Apeh John, alongside Rholavision Engineering and Josmon
\nTechnologies, on an amended 10-count charge, bordering on fraud,
\ndiversion of funds and criminal conspiracy to the tune of over N500
\nmillion (Five Hundred Million Naira).<\/p>\n

At the resumed trial today, prosecution counsel, Offem Uket, presented a
\nwitness, one Chidi Eboigbe, a compliance officer with Ecobank, for
\ntestimony before the court but was opposed by the lead defence counsel,
\nChief Akin Olujimi, who cited Section 379(1) of the Administration of
\nthe Criminal Justice Act 2015, and noted that the witness was not listed
\nas one of the witnesses in the matter.<\/p>\n

“I cannot see anywhere that the witness in the box was listed among the
\nwitnesses going through the proof of evidence and cannot see any name
\nthat looks like his.\u00a0 The only person from ECO Bank is Obadino Abiola
\nGaniyu who has given a statement to EFCC,” he stated.<\/p>\n

Olujimi disclosed that the defence was therefore at a loss as to what
\nthe witness would say, and as such was unable to prepare for his
\ncross-examination. He, therefore, urged the court to strike out the
\nwitness from the case.
\nAll members of the defence team agreed with Olujimi’s submission, adding
\nthat their clients must be given direct notice of the witness’
\nappearance and evidence sought to be given by him.<\/p>\n

In his response, the prosecuting counsel informed the court that the
\nprosecution listed a representative of Ecobank\u00a0 as a witness in the
\nmatter and said, “the witness is not in court as a person but as a
\nrepresentative of the bank to speak on the documents from his bank and
\nthat the statement of account is in the proof of evidence.” Uket further
\nnoted that “Ecobank\u00a0 is an entity that acts through its servants and
\nthat means any staff can be assigned to speak on the issues of past
\nrecords of transactions that happened in the past and in the future.”<\/p>\n

He informed the court that it did not matter that the transaction was
\nnot conducted by the witness and that it predated his employment in the
\nbank and therefore prayed the court to reject the argument of the
\ndefence and allow the witness to give his testimony.<\/p>\n

Justice Okeke adjourned the matter till July 6, 2020, for ruling on the
\neligibility of the witness and continuation of trial.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Justice Jude Okeke of Federal Capital Territory High Court, on Wednesday, June 10, 2020, slated July 6, 2020, for ruling on the eligibility of a prosecution witness to testify in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nN500m Grass-cutting Scandal: Court to Rule on Eligibility of Witness, July 6 - Pointblank News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/news\/n500m-grass-cutting-scandal-court-to-rule-on-eligibility-of-witness-july-6\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"N500m Grass-cutting Scandal: Court to Rule on Eligibility of Witness, July 6 - 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