The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has filed an additional proof of evidence against Godwin Emefiele, the former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Emefiele and his co-defendant, Henry Omoile, are facing
trial on a 26-count charge before a Lagos high court.
The former CBN governor and Omoile pleaded not guilty to all
the charges.
The commission had presented two witnesses to testify
against Emefiele in the trial.
At the resumed hearing on Friday, Olalekan Ojo, counsel to
Emefiele, was expected to continue the cross-examination of John Ikechukwu
Ayoh, the second prosecution witness.
But Ojo told the court that he just received the additional
proof of evidence from the EFCC which was filed on Thursday.
The counsel said he needed to study the additional proof of
evidence to be able to cross-examine the prosecution witness.
He also accused Rotimi Oyedepo, EFCC counsel, of attempting
to engage in “trial by ambush” at the expense of the defendants.
“My lord, there is a need to adjourn this case. We were just
served these huge documents by the EFCC in court,” Ojo said.
“The prosecution keeps dumping documents on us at every
sitting. This is trial by ambush.”
On his part, Adeyinka Kotoye, counsel to the second
defendant, said he was served the additional proof of evidence five minutes
after arriving in court.
Kotoye accused the EFCC of not being diligent in the
prosecution of the case and attempting to ambush the defence team.
In response, the EFCC counsel said it is unfair to describe
the service of processes by the prosecution as “ambush by trial”.
Oyedepo said the additional proof of evidence served by the
commission was some of the documents retrieved from the phone of John Adetona,
a former aide to Emefiele, who was listed as a witness.
Oyedepo said the documents were served in preparation of the
testimony to be given by Adetona before the court.
He added that Adetona was not meant to appear before the
court today or on May 9.
“The witness (Adetona) whose device the documents were
printed from has not given evidence before the court,” Oyedepo said.
“In preparation for
his testimony which is not coming up today or May 9, the prosecution rather
waiting for the defense to formally place a demand for the hard copies, the
prosecution team printed the documents out.
“How does that amount to prosecutorial unfairness?”
Oyedepo prayed that the court should order the defence team
to complete the cross-examination of the second prosecution witness.
He added that the new documents do not affect the
continuation of cross-examination of the witness.
However, Emefiele’s counsel disagreed, saying that he needs
to study the new documents and that there might be new information to help the
cross-examination.
In his ruling, Rahman Oshodi, the presiding judge, agreed
with the defendants’ counsel and adjourned the matter to May 9.
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com