A star witness from the Commission on Economic and Financial Crimes, EFCC, Alhaji Sani Dauda, told the Federal High Court in Abuja how he refused to pay a $20,000.00 bribe to the acting president of the anti-corruption agency, Ibrahim Magu.
Alhaji Dauda, chairman of the SDA organization and a board member of Peugeot Automobile Ltd, is the sixth prosecution witness, PW-6, in corrupt proceedings filed through the EFCC in opposition to former Kaduna Central Senator Shehu Sani.
The EFCC is suing the former legislator for a fee that borders on corruption, denomination, influence-trafficking and the accusation that it received $25,000 from Alhaji Daudu.
He allegedly collected Daudu’s money with the false claim that it would be used to bribe Magu, for the witness of the investigation and prosecution.
According to the EFCC, the defendant also used false pretexts and raised $15,000 from the witness on the grounds that Nigeria’s President of Justice agreed that the cash be handed over to 4 judges and the prosecutor, to drop his case and that of his brother-in-law, an Abubakar Musa
Yesterday, at the resumption of the hearing on the case, Alhaji Daudu, who continued with evidence from its leader, told the court that, starting with an initial amount of $15,000, Senator Sani had raised it as a component of the deal, then requested another $20, 000. 00 to kill EFCC’s acting chief, Magu.
The PW-6, whose testimony was in the Hausa language still translated into English, told the court that Sani had collected the $15,000 in an envelope on November 20, 2019, returned to tell him that the prosecutor had stated that he would. Do not participate in the agreement that Magu intervened in.
He said the defendant told him not to worry about Magu being his friend.
“He called someone on the phone and told me the user was Magu. He told me Magu had said he had to give him $20, 000. I told him I couldn’t. But he kept pushing me to say that if I didn’t.” t, there will be a problem, ” said the witness.
The witness told the court that Sani had done so after collecting the original money, turning off his phone and becoming inaccessible.
He added: “He switched off his phone. I kept calling his phone but it was not going through so I sent him a text three times and he did not reply. That was when I told myself that this man has cheated me.
“I then went to a friend who took me to the CJN. And the CJN denied that he knew the Defendant or sent him to me. The name of that my friend is Mutalah. The CJN then did a press release that he doesn’t know anything about the matter. Since then, I did not see Shehu Sani and he did not call me.”
The witness stated that while returning to the country after the slightest Hajj had met Magu.
“On my return, my wife and Magu took the same flight. It was a Sunday and while we were talking, I told him what had happened. Magu told me to show up at his office, which I did and they asked me to come back. Monday.
“On Monday, I went there. I was narrating what happened in Hausa and my son, Mohammed was interpreting. When I was writing the statement that Monday, Shehu Sani called that he did not know that I was back to the country.
“He told me that he has collected the money back from the people and would have brought it if he knew I was back. When I returned from EFCC, Shehu sani called me that he was coming and I told him that I was not at home. He came to my office and asked us to go inside.
“When we were inside, he was seated on a chair, he then came and held me by the neck and was begging me that I should help him, that I know that he is a politician. My mother knows him. He begged me that I know that I am his godfather.
“But when I left the EFCC, I was told to make sure to record my conversations with Shehu Sani. So everything he told me that day, I didn’t know I recorded it. Around 10:30 in the morning, he brought the cash to my house. When he brought it in, he said it was $25,000 in cash.
“I was very satisfied and went out to tell other people that Shehu Sani had returned my cash. Then I reminded him that the EFCC had said that he had to show up before nine in the morning and that it was happening immediately. From there, I didn’t hear anything from him until he came here to meet Dr. Ibrahim in Kaduna, who said it was his brother. He told me Ibrahim knew all about the case.
“Ibrahim then asked me what I had written in my EFCC. I told them to wait, so I could call my son, Mohammed, who I told I helped write the Array Ibrahim, which is Shehu’s older brother, now he has.” He asked me if I was writing that the cash would be handed over to the judges, that’s what his brother told him.
“He told me I had to do everything I could to replace that because I did. Even the one I recorded. Then Ibrahim said he knew a Shinkafi who is a friend of Magu’s and would come the next Sunday.”
“That Sunday, I was on my farm when I was called to tell myself that Shehu Sani had come. When I met him, he told me that Shinkafi had said that he was writing a withdrawal letter and that he would take it to Magu.”
“I told him I was doing that, ever since I reported the case. He told me if he agreed, he’d tell me what to tell the D.A. to avoid the case. Then EFCC took my two phones. Later, they stayed with my Samsung and returned my iPhone, but the $25,000 are still with EFCC”.
Meanwhile, when asked through Sani’s lawyer, Mr. Abdul Ibrahim, the witness stated that he knew that paying bribes was a crime under Nigerian law.
He asked, “Didn’t you give Shehu Sani a bribe to give CJN in this case? The witness replied, “Shehu Sani didn’t tell me it was a bribe.”
When asked if he knew the defendant as a member of Supreme Court or EFCC staff, the witness replied, “I don’t know, after all, he’s a senator.”
The additional witness admitted to court that he was the one who brought the $25,000 to EFCC and not the defendant.
He said: “It was when he returned it that I took it to EFCC. When I went to EFCC, they asked me to return the money but I said I would not because it is my money. But they insisted that he cheated me and I should bring the money to them. So I took the money to them”.
When asked if, in other words, he forced through the EFCC to bring money, the witness replied, “Not by force, but because a coin said it.”
He said the EFCC had recovered Sani’s money and added that he “brought it to me.”
When asked if he had to go to a law enforcement company to report that Sani had come to deceive him, the witness said, “That’s why I went to the EFCC. If I move on to the police, will I continue to move on to the EFCC?”
When asked if he had earned any significant cash to give Sani, the witness said no, and that he had also gone to the police or CPHI to report the case.
“When someone came here as a brother, I had no explanation for why to think he was looking to lie to me. When I couldn’t succeed with him on the phone, I suspected foul play.”
When asked if there was anyone there when he gave Sani the $25,000, the witness replied, “They saw it when he came to my workplace and went with the envelope.
“But when the cash was returned, there was no one there and when he returned it, there was no one there too.
Meanwhile, the trial judgment on Inyang Ekwo postponed the continuation of the hearing on the matter until Wednesday, even though EFCC, through its lawyer, Abdul Mohammed, revealed that it would call five more witnesses.
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