The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has reiterated that six different statements made by an oil magnate, Aliu Abubakar, implicating a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), in alleged $4 million money laundering charges were not made under any threat or duress.
The anti-graft agency insisted that the statements were made in the comfort of the Conference Hall of the EFCC Executive chairman with a CCTV camera and laptop recording throughout the period the six statements were made.
EFCC gave this reiteration at the resumption of the trial before a Federal High Court in Abuja.
A witness of the EFCC, Ibrahim Ahmed, made the clarifications while testifying in a trial following allegations by the oil magnate, Aliu Abubakar, that he made the statements under threats, inducements, and duress while at the EFCC’s office.
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Following the allegation, counsel to Adoke, Paul Erokoro (SAN), objected to the statements’ admission against his client, prompting the Court on December 6, 2021, to order for trial within trial to ascertain the allegations.
However, Ahmed, an operative of EFCC, informed Justice Inyang Ekwo that the six statements made on different dates were recorded under the best conducive atmosphere in the EFCC’s Chairman’s conference hall with an air conditioner, CCTV, and laptops used as part of recording gadgets.
The anti-graft agency is prosecuting the erstwhile AGF alongside an oil mogul, Mr. Aliyu Abubakar, on a 14-count charge.
In the charge, EFCC alleged that Adoke had sometime in August 2013, in Abuja, accepted a cash payment of the dollar equivalent of N300 million from Aliyu, and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 16 (2)(b) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011 (as amended).
Whereas Abubakar was also accused of accepting a cash payment of the sum of $4 million from Faman Holdings Limited, through one Abdulhakeem Uthman Mustapha, in September 2013
