A Federal High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja presided
over by Justice Nnamdi Dimgba on Friday, March 17, 2017 turned down the
application of Abba Moro, former interior minister, to travel abroad for
medical appointment.
Moro is facing an 11-count charge of
procurement fraud and money laundering preferred against him by the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
He is being
charged alongside one-time permanent secretary in the ministry, Anastasia
Daniel-Nwobia, a deputy director in the ministry, F. O Alayebami, one Mahmood
Ahmadu (at large), and Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited, a firm that was given the
recruitment job, in the ill-fated Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, recruitment
exercise in 2014.
Moro, had through
his counsel, Paul Erokoro, SAN, sought leave of the court to travel abroad for
a medical appointment in an application dated December 16, 2016.
At the resumed
sitting today, Erokoro, while reminding the court of the pending application
urged his lordship to allow the defendant attend to
his medical needs abroad.
In his ruling,
Justice Dimgba noted that, the application, dated December 16, 2016 addressed
the request for the defendant to travel out of the country for a medical
appointment scheduled for January 2017.
“A medical
appointment for January 2017 cannot be given in March”, the judge held.
Consequently,
Justice Dimgba asked that the counsel update the application, and adjourned to
Tuesday, March 21, 2017 for hearing on pending applications.
Earlier in the
proceeding, Ishaq Yahaya, a director of compliance at the Bureau of Public
Procurement, BPP, who testified as PW3 was called to the witness box for
further cross-examination.
He had at the last
sitting, March 16, while being cross-examined by Erokoro, SAN, and Chris
Uche, SAN, counsel to 1st and 2nd defendants respectively, told the court that Drexel Tech Global Services, a company purportedly
used by the defendant to perpetuate the alleged crime “is non-existent”.
Answering questions by
S. I. Ameh, SAN, counsel to the fourth defendant, Drexel Tech Nigeria Limited, Yahaya
gave additional insight into how the recruitment exercise of March 17,
2013 that led to the death of scores of Nigerian job applicants was carried out
without due process.
He informed the court of the prescribed methods by the Public Procurement Act for procurement of services.
According to him, “While the use of ICT cannot be tagged as a criminal activity, the
method prescribed by the Public Procurement Act for procurement of services are:
the Open Competitive Method, the Special and Restricted Methods, under
which are Selective Tendering, Direct Procurement, Emergency Procurement and
Two-Stage Tendering. Consultancy falls under all the methods”.
Regarding
the contract (Exhibit AAFD 13), Yahaya said, “The parties to the e-recruitment
platform contract were the Ministry of Interior and Drexel Tech Nigeria Ltd. The
contractual agreement between the Interior Ministry and Drexel was a
Public-Private Partnership project, as indicated by the Minister. Drexel was
engaged to provide the e-recruitment platform for the Government.
“The item and the
amount relating to the operational cost of N83million were not captured in the
document. No sum from the Federal Government was invested in this project.
Information on a sharing ratio of 70:30 between the Federal Government and the
contractor was not captured in the document”.
He added that there
was no supplementary document or addendum with the documents supplied by the
Ministry for the purpose of review.
Upon allusions by
Ameh to the effect that the BPP did not write to Drexel Tech Nig Ltd for their
account of events, Yahaya said, “We were reviewing the contract and not Drexel,
the organization”.
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