22nd March, 2011
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday told an Ikeja High Court that its official, Mr. Davies Ibrahim, forged some documents to perpetrate fraud.
Ibrahim, an administrative officer with the EFCC, is standing trial along side Somorin Olusegun, a mobile repairer. They are facing a seven-count charge of conspiracy, obtaining money under false pretence, forgery and tendering of false documents.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the duo had pleaded not guilty to the charges during their arraignment.
The prosecution had alleged that the accused, with others still at large, obtained N55,000 from Mrs. Augusta Eleshin on Aug. 16, 2008.
However, at the hearing of the matter on Monday, an EFCC witness, Mr. Efa Okim, told court that the agency had sent the documents to handwriting analysts to verify their source.
He said the EFCC also wrote to some banks and telecommunications firms to ascertain if Ibrahim was involved in the alleged fraud.
“We sent the documents to handwriting analysts because they were official documents which had been minuted on them by him but had not passed through official administrative channels.
“We needed to ascertain the involvement of the accused as a staff member in spite of his confessing to the crime voluntarily,†Okim said.
However, the Defence Counsel, Mr. E.D. Onyeke objected to the documents tendered by the EFCC’s Counsel, Mr. Ben Ubi.
He said documents were not in the court’s proof of evidence, adding that it was a deliberate ploy by the prosecution to delay the trial.
Onyeke said they had collected the money from Eleshin under the pretence that it would be used to compromise the investigation of a petition purportedly written against her husband, Saka Odofin.