Former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday disagreed over a witness subpoenaed to appear in the former governor’s trial.
The development occurred before Judge Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
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The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the EFCC is prosecuting Mr Lamido on alleged money laundering involving N1.35 billion.
The former governor is being tried alongside his two sons – Aminu and Mustapha; Aminu Wada Abubakar and their companies – Bamaina Holdings Ltd and Speeds International Ltd.
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The defendants, through their lawyer, Joe Agi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), had applied that the EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede, or any official of the commission be summoned to give evidence in their defence, after their no-case submission was dismissed.
The defendants had opted for a no-case submission after the prosecution closed its case by calling 17 witnesses.
Although the case was initially reassigned to Judge Peter Lifu by the chief judge of the court after the Supreme Court judgement which upheld the trial court ruling, the commission insisted that Justice Ojukwu, the earlier trial judge, concluded the matter.
The case was subsequently reassigned to Mrs Ojukwu.
When the case was called on Tuesday, Kayode Oyetunde, a staff member and investigator of the EFCC, was called by the lawyer to the anti-graft agency, Chile Okoroma, also a SAN, to testify.
But Mr Agi sought an adjournment to allow him to interface with the subpoenaed witness.
Mr Okoroma, however, opposed the application for adjournment.
The prosecution lawyer, instead, prayed the court to stand down proceedings to allow the defence have access to the witness as all documents produced by the subpoenaed witness had already been frontloaded before the court as evidence.
The judge, therefore, refused to adjourn the matter and threatened to strike out the subpoena if the application for adjournment was granted.
She later stood down the case for an hour to allow the defence interface with the subpoenaed witness.
After proceedings resumed, the witness was called into the witness box.
The witness admitted in court that he was not part of the investigative team and was only directed to search for documents requested in the subpoena.
The defence lawyer, therefore, stated that he cannot proceed with the matter as the witness knew nothing about the case.
Mr Agi submitted that the witness cannot give evidence in case he knows nothing about and urged the EFCC chairman to make available a witness relevant to the case.
However, Mr Okoroma disagreed with Mr Agi’s submission.
He said that all documents requested in the subpoena had been made available and the EFCC is a corporate entity and anyone could represent it.
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He argued that a subpoena is not sacrosanct and the court shouldn’t give heed to the defence complaints.
While responding to a reference made by Mr Agi to one of the prosecution witnesses who had testified in court, Mrs Ojukwu advised him to file an application for the witness to be recalled.
She said it was only when a witness refused to come to court that he could be subpoenaed.
After Justice Ojukwu admitted all the documents requested in the subpoena as evidence, she adjourned the matter until 4 June for continuation of trial.
(NAN)
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