Three witnesses of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Friday, April 28 ,2017 testified in the ongoing trial of a cousin to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Azibaola Robert, his wife, Stella and their company, One Plus Holdings Nigeria Limited, before Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja.
Azibaola and his co-accused were alleged to have diverted $40million
(Forty Million United State Dollars) purportedly meant for supply of
Tactical Communication kits for Special Forces which was transferred
from the account of the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA,
with the Central Bank of Nigeria to the domiciliary account of their
company, One Plus Holdings.
The witnesses: Mohammed A. Bello,
Confidence Onabu and Remigius Ugwu testified as PW6, PW7 and PW8
respectively and were led in evidence by counsel to EFCC, Sylvanus
Tahir.
Bello, while testifying told the court that sometime between
October 2014 and April 2015, he met one
Amobi Ogum through his account
officer in Zenith Bank, Obinna Amaechi.
According to him, Ogum was the account relationship officer for One Plus.
Bello, who is the managing director of Karahyna Nigeria Limited said that, he maintains both naira and dollar account. He told the court that his first encounter with One Plus was for transaction of $150,000, in which he gave the bank the dollars (in cash) for it to be transferred to his domiciliary account because the bank did not have dollars in cash to give to customers.
He stated that, within the period under reference, there was a total transaction of $6,600,000 into his account from One Plus adding that, at times he used to pay naira into one Kamaludeen Dahiru’s account supplied by Ogum.
Under cross-examination by Gordy Uche, SAN, Bello told the court that the entire transaction was based on instruction from Ogum saying, “I used to do cash swap in which I pay dollar to naira or sometimes dollar to dollar exchange.”
Copies of the statement volunteered by Bello to EFCC was presented and admitted as Exhibits ASO10i-iii.
In her evidence, Onabu, a marketer who works with a subsidiary of Capitalfield Investment & Trust Limited told the court that she had not met the first and second defendants (Azibaola and Stella), but their company had dealings with the third defendant, One Plus, between 2014 and 2015.
Onabu explained that, sometimes in April 2015, one Obinna Amaechi, a banker with Zenith bank informed her of a colleague in Abuja, who had a client with some free funds in dollars for sale and wanted to know if their company would be interested in purchasing it.
The PW7 stated that she got back to Amaechi, informing him of the readiness of her company (Capitalfield) to purchase $2million and asked if they had it available. She told the court that Amaechi, through a text message, sent her the account details where he wanted the naira equivalent deposited.
According to her, Capitalfield credited the naira equivalent of N400million (which at that time was N219.8 to a dollar) to one Dahiru Kamaludeen, while Capitalfield was credited with $2million dollars by One Plus.
Testifying, Ugwu, a compliance officer with Zenith bank stated he knew the third defendant, One Plus, who had both dollar and naira account in their bank.
He told the court that they received a letter from EFCC between February 2016 and April 2016 requesting for account opening package, statement of account and certificate of identification in respect of Karahyna Nigeria Limited, Reya Telecommunications Nigeria Limited, Capitalfield Investment & Trust Limited and Teledom International Limited in respect of their dollar account including that of Dahiru adding that, “all were provided to the EFCC as requested”.
According to him, “between October 2014 and April 2015, the account of Karahyna Nigera Limited received a total inflow of $6.6million from One Plus Holdngs”.
Documents in support of this claim were admitted in evidence as thus: Karahyna Nigeria Limited as Exhibit ASO 11(1-39); Reya Telecommunications Nigeria Limited, Exhibit ASO 12 (1-839); Capitalfield Investment & Trust Limited, Exhibit ASO 13 (1-80); Teledom International Limited, Exhibit ASO 14 (1-19) and Kamaludeen Dahiru as Exhibit ASO 15 (1-39).
The case has been adjourned to June 20 - 21, 2017 for continuation of trial.
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