{"id":4653,"date":"2020-02-27T22:51:09","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T22:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsreservoir.com\/?p=4653"},"modified":"2020-02-27T22:51:09","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T22:51:09","slug":"court-frowns-at-efcc-over-alleged-publication-of-false-information-against-sen-shehu-sani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsreservoir.com\/?p=4653","title":{"rendered":"Court frowns at EFCC over alleged publication of false information against Sen Shehu Sani"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Court frowns at EFCC over alleged publication of false information against Sen Shehu Sani<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>ABUJA, Nigeria:<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja and presided over by Justice Inyang Ekwo on Wednesday frowned at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over an alleged publication of false information against Senator Shehu Sani, who is standing trial in court.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>The EFCC on January 27, 2020 arraigned Sani on a two counts charge of bribery and advanced fee fraud premised on an allegation of \u201ccollecting 25,000 dollars\u2033 in the name of the EFCC acting chairman, Ibrahim Magu.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>The EFCC on February 25, published a news story on its official twitter handle \u2018@officialEFCC\u2019 with the headline \u2018EFCC presents witnesses Against Shehu Sani Over Alleged $10m Fraud\u2019.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>This attracted the attention of the legal counsel to Sani, Mr Abdul Ibrahim Esq., who drew the attention of the Court to the publication by the EFCC on its r verified official twitter handle, @officialEFCC indicating that Sani was before the court in respect to a $10 million fraud rather than and 25,000 dollars.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Ibrahim said; \u201cThe story they put out there for the public is that he was charged for $10m which is not true.\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>He then tendered a printout copy of the publication before the court as evidence.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>But Counsel to the EFCC, Mr Abba Mohammed Esq., said that he was not aware of the publication adding that the news came to him as a shock.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>According to him; \u201cI view this as an attempt to instigate the court against the prosecution. It is just a print out of a purported EFCC handle and anybody can do it.\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>However, Justice Ekwo cautioned the prosecutor saying; \u201canybody can do anything when they are allowed to do so.\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Justice Ekwo advised the parties to observe and comment on happenings in court only, stressing that there should be no commentary on the substance of the case before the court.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>In the word of Ekwo; \u201cParties should trust that the will of law in this matter will be achieved. I don\u2019t want to be put in a position of being distracted from doing my duty. The records of court are public documents that can be applied for. So, this should not happen again,\u201d the trial judge warned.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Before then, the EFCC prosecuting counsel presented its Third and Fourth witnesses in the trial of Senator Sani.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>While testifying, the Third Prosecution Witness (PW3), Mr. Remi Jones said he has being working with Zenith Bank as a Compliance Officer for over four years and was requested on January13, 2020 by the prosecution to present the bank details of one Mr Ahmed Abubakar.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Jones said some of the documents requested for were Abubakar\u2019s account opening package, statement of account opening, adding that he requested for the account opening package from the domicile branch.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>He said; \u201cI got a copy. I certified it and printed the statement of account. I compared the breakdown with what is stored on the system, I found it to be correct and also certified it. I also attached the certificate of identification, stating the conditions and our response was sent back to the EFCC.\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Counsel to the EFCC, Mohammed then tendered the retrieved documents before the court as Exhibit.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>The prosecution witness 3 also said that based on the account statement of Abubakar, on November 20, 2019, there was an inflow of N5 million from ASD Motors Nigeria Limited account domicile at Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB).<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>During cross examination, Defence Counsel, Ibrahim asked PW3 if the defendant was the beneficiary and he responded that he was not aware of who the beneficiary was adding however that it wasn\u2019t Shehu Sani based on the account statement placed before him.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Similarly, the Fourth Prosecution witness (PW4), who is a Bureau de Change operator, Mallam Abubakar Ahmed, said that on November 19, 2019, the son of Alhaji Dauda Sani by name Mohammed Sani, informed him that his dad wanted him to do a transaction with him.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Ahmed said; \u201cOn November 20, 2019, Dauda Sani called me that he wanted to change dollar equivalent to N5 million. Dauda Sani brought a GTB Cheque to me worth 13,930 dollars.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>\u201cI gave my staff the cheque to go to the bank to do a transfer from GTB to my personal with Zenith bank account because the cheque was of GTB and I received the alert.\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>Ahmed said he did not see Senator Shehu Sani at Alhaji Dauda Sani\u2019s house, stressing that he had never met Senator Sani in person except only in news.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>The prosecution counsel said he had listed 14 witnesses in the case and has so far presented 4 before the court.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><strong>After listening, Justice Ekwo adjourned the case to May 4th, 5th and 6th for continuation of trial.<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Court frowns at EFCC over alleged publication of false information against Sen Shehu Sani ABUJA, Nigeria: A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja and presided over by Justice Inyang Ekwo on Wednesday frowned at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over an alleged publication of false information against Senator Shehu Sani, who is standing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.3.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Court 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