ORONSAYE: EFCC WITNESS CONTRADICTS SELF …AS COURT GRANTS EX HEAD OF SERVICE LEAVE FOR MEDICAL CHECK
Destiny Ugorji
A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, presided over by Justice Gabriel Kolawole on Tuesday, granted an application by Nigeria’s former Head of Service, Mr. Stephen Oronsaye to travel abroad for medical check-up.
Counsel to Oronsaye, Ade Okeaya-Inneh (SAN), had drawn the attention of the Court to an earlier application requesting that his client be granted time to allow him travel abroad for checks on routine and other ailments.
Prosecution Counsel, Afolabi, agreed that the Court could vary Oronsaye’s bail condition to allow him travel for medical check-up, having backed his application with an affidavit, but maintained that the defendant would be sure tied.
Delivering his ruling on the application, the presiding Judge, Justice Gabriel Kolawole declared that Mr. Oronsaye could travel for medical checks within the period of summer recess for judicial officers beginning in July, 2016, after his cases pending in any court before 11th July, 2016, had been heard.
Meanwhile, EFCC’s prosecution witness, an operative of the anti-corruption agency, with about nine years of experience, Ibrahim Rouqayya (Mrs), led in evidence by EFCC’s prosecution counsel, Afolabi, had made contradictory statements in her accounts against the second defendant in the suit, Osarenkhoe Afe.
Rouqayya who was asked to limit her account to the circumstances that led to the accused making the extra-judicial statements obtained by her said: ‘’Second defendant’s statement was recorded in our office, block ‘c’, an open-plan office which we share with another unit. About seven people share the work-place. I recorded the statement while he sat beside me, facing the door and other investigation officers doing their own business. Before I started taking his statement, we had an interview where I showed him the bank statement where the payment was made. After the interview, I gave him the statement to read. I explained to him that the statement was not under duress but that whatever he had to say would be put in writing.
She also said that the recording took place from about 2pm to 6pm, adding that, ‘2nd defendant’s response was voluntary’.
Under cross-examination by defence counsel, Oluwale (SAN), Rouqayya said:
“My first encounter with second defendant was in the open-plan office where I interacted with him and interviewed him on 24th February, 2011. I am aware that Nura Buhari and Mustapha Gadanya were the ones that went to his house to invite him for the interview. If anything untold had happened, I would have known. I know the people I work with and I trust them.”
However, Rouqayya also said that, “Mustapha Gadanya did not brief me as to what happened in 2nd defendant’s house before he assigned me to take his statement. I know that a search was conducted in 2nd defendant’s house but I don’t know the items recovered from his house.”
“I was not part of the team, so I do not know if the officials took 2nd defendant to Wakili Mohammed’s office when they arrived EFCC office at 2nd floor, block ‘c’. I know that 2nd defendant was detained on 24th February but I don’t know the length of period because someone else would have handled that part of the job after my interview.”
“I would not know if 2nd defendant’s international Passport was seized by the officials that arrested him because I was not with them. The first statement was recorded by me. When I was interviewing him, there was no phone with him,” Rouqayya said.
Justice Kolawole had warned that publishers and news reporters who misrepresent the proceedings of the court would be charged for contempt of Court. The warning followed Oronsaye’s counsel’s oral report of the erroneous report on June 15th proceedings in which issues not mentioned in the court were published against his client.
Among other issues, the SAN wondered why it would be reported that Oronsaye lodged monies in 60 bank accounts if not to disparage his client before the public.
The Judge adjourned the case till 28 of June for continuation of ‘trial within trial’ on the extra-judicial statement of the 2nd defendant while in EFCC’s custody.