A prosecution witness on Tuesday told the FCT High Court in Abuja how former Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika allegedly split a contract to bypass regulatory oversight and scrutiny in favour of family-linked companies.
The witness, Adekunle Odofin, who is an Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigator, testified that the contract splitting helped Mr Sirika to evade the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in the contract approval process.
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Mr Odofin, who started testifying as the 12th prosecution witness on Monday, identified the contracts in issue as the terminal building and apron expansion at the Umaru Musa Yar’adua Airport, Katsina, Katsina State. Mr Sirika, who served as Nigeria’s aviation minister from 2015 to 2023, hails from Katsina State like then-President Muhammadu Buhari, who appointed him.
According to the witness, Mr Sirika split the contract into two, awarding the terminal building to Enginos, a company belonging to his brother Hamad Sirika, and the apron expansion to Al Buraq Global Investment Limited, in which the former minister’s daughter and her husband have interest.
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“Investigation revealed that the first defendant (Mr Sirka) used his position to divide the contract into two. The first contract – the terminal building – was awarded to Enginos, a company belonging to his brother Hamad Sirika, while the second contract – apron expansion – was awarded to the fourth defendant (Al Buraq Global Investment Limited),” Mr Odofin, an Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigator, said.
The EFCC is prosecuting Mr Sirika, alongside his daughter – Fatima Sirika, Fatima’s husband – Jalal Hamma, and the couple’s firm, Al Buraq Global Investment, on six counts of contract fraud involving N2.8 billion.
EFCC alleged that the couple unduly got aviation ministry contracts worth more than a billion naira, while Mr Sirika superintended the ministry.
The commission also charged Mr Sirika with abuse of office for allegedly awarding contracts to a company in which his daughter and her husband had interests.
The charges also accuse Mr Sirika of using his power to confer an unfair advantage on Al Buraq Global Investment Limited, a company linked to his daughter and her husband. This allegedly involved a N1.5 billion contract for the Katsina Airport Apron Extension.
Also, the anti-graft agency alleged that Fatima and her husband held indirect private interests in the contract, with N1.3 billion allegedly traced to Mr Sirika as proceeds of criminal conduct in the form of gratification. The EFCC said the act violates Section 12 of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) Act.
All defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The contract splitting alleged by the 12th prosecution witness involves dividing a contract into smaller units that fall within the approval threshold of the procuring officer, thereby avoiding the need for approval by higher or independent bodies as required by law.
It is also unusual and potentially a criminal violation for contractors to receive 100 per cent payment upfront. The standard practice typically involves paying contractors based on the stages of project execution until completion.
Sharing some insights into the justification provided for the aviation ministry’s contract payments, the fifth prosecution witness, Musa Odiniyan, who is a retired director in the Procurement Department of the Ministry of Aviation, testified in January that the contract payment was expedited to ensure the project was completed and commissioned before former President Buhari left office.
Mr Odiniyan also testified that Al Buraq was unqualified and would not have won the contract under a fair bidding process.
Former President Buhari left office with his cabinet members on 29 May 2023.
How Sirika’s daughter, son-in-law, received contract payments
During Tuesday’s proceedings, the witness told the court that N182 million, out of the contract sum, was paid to Mr Hamma’s account in Zenith Bank. Out of this sum, N110 million was placed in a fixed deposit.
The witness also said N7.4 million was transferred from the contract sum to Fatima’s account domiciled in Jaiz Bank, while N8.2 million was transferred in two tranches- N5.5 million and N2.7 million to Mr Hamma’s salary account in Access Bank.
Similarly, he said, N500 million was transferred to Trimark Engineering Services Limited which was not utilised for the contract of apron expansion. He said, instead, the money was used to execute “contracts awarded to the company by other agencies”.
Mr Odofin added that N549 million, with some fractions, is still in Al Buraq’s account, and the contract has not been fulfilled.
‘Confessional statement’ denied
The EFCC’s lawyer, Rotimi Jacobs, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), sought to tender as evidence the couple’s statements, which they penned when the anti-graft agency invited them for investigations last year.
The defence lawyers objected to the admissibility of the documents, alleging that they were confessional statements obtained from the two defendants under duress.
The trial judge, Slyvannus Oriji, ruled that it was premature for the court to determine if the statement was confessional.
He then ordered a trial-within-trial to determine the voluntariness of the statements.
The judge scheduled further proceedings for 27, 28 and 29 October.
Background
Mr Odofin, the 12 prosecution witness, opened his testimony on Monday, narrating how a petition from the coalition of aviation workers prompted EFCC’s investigations of Mr Sirika and his co-defendants.
The EFCC also disclosed that upon investigation, a recovered document allegedly bore Mr Sirika’s handwriting divided a contract between Enginos Nigeria Limited and Al Buraq.
He further told the court that the investigating team executed a search note on Okorie’s Prado Jeep when he visited the EFCC office, adding that a particular document with the caption “remaining 2021 projects” was recovered from the jeep.
The witness added that, “In serial number 13 of this document contained a particular contract, terminal building and apron expansion at Katsina airport.
On this same number 13, a red pen handwriting dividing the one contract into two, terminal building for Enginos Nigeria Limited and apron expansion to the fourth defendant, Al Buraq Global Investment Limited.
“This handwriting on the document was believed to have been written by the first defendant. This same handwriting was shown to the first defendant. He denied knowledge of it and also declined that the handwriting was his.”
Consequent to the denial, Mr Odofin told the court that handwriting specimens were taken from the former minister, while the team went to the Ministry of Aviation to receive documents reflecting Sirika’s handwriting.
These, he said, were forwarded to a forensic expert together with the disputed handwriting and the original copies of the extrajudicial statements made to EFCC by the former minister.
He informed the court that on 14 May 2024, the team received the report of the forensic expert analysis in which it was established that both the disputed handwriting and the handwriting specimens “were made by no other person but the first defendant in this case”.
“The position of the forensic report further corroborated the position of Azubuike in whose custody the disputed document was recovered,” Mr Odofin told the court.
He added that one Sabo Yahaya, who was the MD/CEO, Tramak Engineering Services Limited, was invited in the course of investigation by his team and made two statements in respect if the N500 million transferred to his company account with Zenith Bank from the total contract sum paid to Al Buraq Global Investment.
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He also disclosed that the mother of the Sirika’s son-in-law, Saratu Chinade was also invited to make her statement, adding that the mother was signatory to the account of Al Buraq with Zenith Bank.
On 27 June, the EFCC presented to the court Fatima and Mr Hamma’s employment records at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), purporting to show that they got the aviation ministry contracts while they were serving as a public office.
The EFCC is also prosecuting Mr Sirika alongside his brother and two companies on charges of abuse of office and contract fraud allegedly involving N19.4 billion.
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