* EFCC boss in court to testify against Abubakar
The ongoing trial of Abubakar Ali Peters and his company, Nadabo Energy Limited over an alleged N1.4billion fraud before Justice C.A. Balogun of the Lagos State High Court in Ikeja could not continue on Tuesday, following the absence of the defence lawyer in court.
Abubakar and his company, Nababo Energy Limited, who were arraigned on December 10, 2012, are being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for allegedly using forged documents to obtain the sum of N1.4billion from the Federal Government as oil subsidy, after allegedly inflating the quantity of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, purportedly imported and supplied by the company.
When the charge was read to Abubakar, he pleaded “not guilty” to the offence.
At the last sitting on November 16, Justice Balogun had admitted in evidence against the defendants, the letters of investigation activities written by the EFCC to Petrocam Trading PYT Limited and the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, as well as the responses from the two agencies as exhibits O4, O5 and O51.
The documents were tendered by the prosecuting EFCC lawyer, S.K. Atteh, through the Executive Chairman, EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, who is the fifth prosecution witness and the lead investigator.
Bawa, who was expected to continue with his examination-in-chief on Tuesday, had told the court that the correspondences, which were thoroughly studied in the course of investigation, further exposed several activities embarked upon to defraud the Federal Government in fuel subsidy funds.
He then said “We studied the responses from Petrocam and found out that, contrary to the claim of the defendant that Ashland Energy SA was the supplier, it was Petrocam Trading PYT Limited that supplied about 4,500MT equivalent to about 6.5million litres of PMS as against the claim of about 14,000MT of PMS equivalent to about 19.8million litres purportedly supplied by the defendant,”
But when the matter came up on Tuesday, the defence lawyer was absent, stalling further testimony of the witness.
When asked by the court where his lawyer was, Abubakar simply said: “He told me that his flight from Kaduna got cancelled.”
Atteh, however, urged the court to take note of the fact that “We have had similar excuses in the past.”
Justice Balogun also observed that the defence lawyer gave no prior notice of his absence to either the court or the prosecution.
Speaking to Abubakar, the judge said, “You better know what you are doing. The witness (EFCC Chairman) is also in court, so why should the lawyer delay us.”
Justice Balogun consequently held that “In the circumstance, this court will give the first and second defendants a last chance till Wednesday morning (today), December 8, 2021 to continue with the hearing of this matter.”
