On Wednesday, the Federal Capital Territory High Court halted Ahmed Idris' trial for alleged N109 billion corruption charges. Idris was the former Accountant General of the Federation.
This happened because the EFCC, the court, and the defense team were unable to find a statement he made on July 5, 2022, to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission during the course of the investigation. Idris was previously charged by the EFCC on 13 counts related to the alleged misappropriation of N109 billion on October 27, 2022 along with Olusegun Akindele, Mohammed Usman, and Gezawa Commodity Market and Exchange Limited.
Sections 155 and 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap. 532 of the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990, were violated, according to the EFCC.
The anti-graft organization claimed that Idris received N15 billion in gratification from Akindele between February and December 2021. The nine oil-producing states of the Federation would receive their 13% derivation payments faster as a result of the transaction, according to the statement made by the office of the Accountant General of the Federation. The first and second defendants allegedly converted N84. 3 billion from the Federal Government's account between February and November 2021, according to the anti-graft agency.
The former Accountant General denied during the proceedings on Wednesday that some of the statements he provided to the EFCC regarding the N109 billion alleged fraud were voluntary. Idris had claimed that the crucial declarations the EFCC wanted to use against him in the corruption case had been made under duress. Justice Halilu Yusuf subsequently commanded a trial within a trial to confirm the allegation.
Despite the fact that the EFCC had called Mr. Hayatudeen Suleiman, an operative, as a witness for questioning regarding 13 different statements obtained from Idris, issues arose when it turned out that a statement dated July 5, 2022, which was allegedly crucial to the trial, was not included in the bundles of documents the EFCC had uploaded to the court. The situation got worse when the EFCC was trying to question the witness about a disputed statement but was unable to locate the statement in its case file.
The former Accountant General's legal team was led by Chief Chris Uche, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who also informed the court that the statement was not one of those given to him by the EFCC. According to Uche, the anti-graft agency suppressed some documents for reasons that are best known to them, and the defendant's missing statement may be one of those documents.
"We came in fully prepared for this case to be resolved in a meaningful way, but unfortunately, the EFCC seems to be holding us back by failing to clean up its act. "If it were a civil case, I would have asked for N5M in costs for the prosecution's excessive use of our time," the defendant said. Justice Halilu Yusuf tried to correct the situation, but was unsuccessful because the statement was also missing from the court file.
At this point, the EFCC's attorney requested an adjournment from Justice Yusuf after insisting that the missing statement was essential to his client's case. This would allow him to look for the missing statement and serve the defendant as required by law. Justice Yusuf set May 11 for the trial to continue at the EFCC's request after consulting with the attorneys.