A Bureau De Change Operator, Abubakar Umar, on Wednesday told the Federal High Court in Abuja that he handed over the sum of $15.8million to the former governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, in 2014.
Suswam who was the governor of Benue state from 2007 to 2015 is standing trial in a corruption case in which Umar, who is the fourth prosecution witness, PW-4 told the court that he took the money to the former governor at his Abuja residence in Maitama.
The BDC operator who is the Chief Executive Officer of Fanffash Resources has been in the witness box since 2018. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, earlier declared him as a hostile witness in the course of the trial after he recanted on a statement he made before the anti-graft agency.
Whereas Umar had in his extra-judicial statement before the EFCC, stated that he took the money to the former governor at his Abuja residence, however, while being led in evidence by the Prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, he changed the narrative and told the court that he took the money to the Government House in Benue State.
However, at the resumed proceedings in the matter on Wednesday, the PW-4, reaffirmed the earlier statement he made before the EFCC and told the court that it was Suswam’s associates that pressured him to change his statement.
He said: “I changed my statement because of the pressure I received from Suswam’s people”.
When asked by the prosecution counsel, what the ex-governor’s allies wanted him to change, he told the court that they wanted him to change where and who he gave the Dollar equivalent of N3.1 billion to.
He told the court that sometime in August 2014, “Suswam called me to his house in Maitama and introduced me to a lady and asked me to give her my account details”.
Continuing, the witness said: “Suswam said when I see the money, I should give him the Dollar equivalent, which I did, amounting to $15.8m while using N197 as the exchange rate.
“I handed over the Dollars in cash to Suswam at his residence in Abuja”.
Umar told the court that he never mentioned that he handed over the money to Suswam at Kubwa, but Maitama.
The witness said his company Fanffash Resources had no relationship with the Benue State Government, adding that he also had no business or contract with Elixir Investment Partners Limited and does not know where they are.
Trial Justice Ahmed Mohammed adjourned the matter till May 25 for the continuation of the trial.
EFCC had in 2015, charged Suswam to court alongside his erstwhile Commissioner of Finance, Omodachi Okolobia, over the allegation that they looted proceeds shares owned by the Benue State government and Benue Investment and Property Company Ltd.
The anti-graft agency alleged that the duo laundered public funds totalling about N3.1billion.
The Defendants were subsequently re-arraigned on November 2, 2020, on an amended 11-count money laundering charge.
In the amended charge, EFCC, among other things, alleged that the 2nd Defendant, Okolobia, transacted a total sum of N578million in four tranches, in excess of the threshold of cash transactions permitted by the money laundering law.
He was said to have committed the offences between December 2014 and January 2015.
Comments are closed.