The trial of a former Director-General of the Nigerian
Broadcasting Commission, NBC, Emeka Mba who is facing a 15-count charge of
money laundering and procurement fraud to the tune of N2.8billion commenced on
Tuesday, February 28, 2017 with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,
EFCC, presenting its first witness, John Ejim.
Mba is standing trial alongside a former Director of Finance of
NBC, Patrick Areh; Basil Udotai (trading in the name and style of Technology
Advisors) and Babatunde Amure (trading in name and style of Divine Partners)
before Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
They were alleged to have at various times connived and
transferred state funds to the tune of N2.9billion from the account of NBC
through various proxies for personal gains.
Mba was also alleged to have used his office as former DG to award
contracts without following due procurement process.
Ejim, an operative of EFCC, while being led in evidence by counsel
to EFCC, Prince Ben Ikani, told the court that his investigation was an
offshoot of a petition dated December 30, 2015, to the Presidency by one Okey
Nwafor and copied to the Executive Chairman of the EFCC.
“The petition alleged among others things: a diversion of proceeds
of sale of 700Mhz of Spectrum to an account held by NBC in Zenith bank and that
the amount diverted was illegally paid to 5 setup proxies and manufacturers
under the digital switch platform”, he said.
When Ikani sought to tender the document (copy of the petition) in
evidence, Mba’s counsel, S. I. Ameh, SAN, objected saying, “the witness cannot
be examined on a document he did not make”.
Also counsel to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th defendants - I. F Chude, P.
Erukoro and Ikoro M. Ikoro respectively aligned themselves with the objection
raised by Ameh, while Erukoro added that there was no evidence of stamp duty
paid by the prosecution on the document as stipulated by law.
Responding, Ikani noted that the witness, as an investigator, was
only stating what led to the investigation and that in law, what matters is the
relevance of the document tendered.
In a bench ruling, Justice Kolawole overruled the objection
saying, “the document sought to be tendered is relevant to the case” and
admitted it as exhibit 1.
Continuing, the PW1 said he invited the account officer as well as
the compliance officer of Zenith bank who brought along the account opening
documents in which it was discovered that Mba was a co-signatory to the
account.
“The documents revealed the deposit of a lump sum of N34.1billion
and a transfer of N2.8billion from the said account to Technology Advisors.
“We invited Emeka Mba and Patrick Areh to further interrogate them
on the matter.”
“I attended to Patrick Areh who volunteered his statement after I
availed him a copy of the petition”, Ejim stated.
Ikani sought to tender the document (2nd defendant’s statement) in
evidence, but its admissibility was objected by Chude, who said that the statement
was not voluntarily obtained.
Justice Kolawole, thereafter, adjourned to March 8, 2017 for a
trial-within-trial to determine the voluntariness of the statement.
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