A Lagos State High Court, Ikeja, has adjourned further proceedings in a 1.4 billion naira fraud trial involving an oil company, Nadabo Energy Ltd and it’s Chairman till April 28
The presiding judge, Justice Christopher Balogun gave the adjournment to enable the court rule on the admissibility of document sought to be tender by the Prosecutor.
The chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Abdulrasheed Bawa, was led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, Seidu Atteh, to narrate the outcome of their investigation in the alleged offences.
Mr Bawa said he analysed the email correspondences of the defendants and found out that contrary to their claim, they took about six million litres of petrol from a mother vessel to their chartered vessel.
“The email further confirmed that the same quantity was discharged at Port-Harcourt. In addition, the email also informed us that one Mr Jide Akpan was the agent of the vessel,” Mr Bawa said, in the case which he, as an EFCC investigator, was a prosecution witness before his appointment as the chairman of the anti-graft agency.
“We invited the said Akpan and during the course of our interrogation with him he confirmed that the first defendant through the second defendant deferred the vessel and paid for it.”
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He alleged that investigation revealed that the defendants took only approximately six million litres of PMS on board the mother vessel, MT Evriduk, into their own chartered vessel, MT St. Vanessa.
He testified that he wrote a letter of investigation to Petrocam, the trader that supplied the defendant with the petroleum product.
The EFCC chairman told the court that a request was made in the letter for all the financial and shipping documents in respect of transactions with Nadabo Energy.
Bawa said that the EFCC also wrote a letter of investigations of activities to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to confirm the registration status of Nadabo Energy.
He said the CAC responded in writing by forwarding Certified True Copies (CTCs) of all the documents requested.
EFCC counsel, Seidu Atteh sought to tender all the documents it received from Petrocam and the CAC as evidence
But the Defence counsel, Mr E.O. Isirameh, however, objected to it.
The development which made the court to adjourned for ruling.
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The EFCC had accused Abubakar Peters and his company, Nadabo Energy, of allegedly using forged documents to obtain N1.4 billion from the federal government as oil subsidy after allegedly inflating the quantity of premium motor spirit, PMS purportedly supplied to 14,000M.
The defendants had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In his previous testimony, Mr Bawa told the court that based on investigation carried out on the defendant’s dealings with Staco Insurance Company, the Certificate of marine insurance used by the defendant for the transaction in question was forged.
