EFCC Seeks to Tender Document Claiming Suswam Tampered with Prosecution Witness

Alex Enumah in Abuja

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) wednesday sought to tender a document showing that former Governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, tampered with its fourth prosecution witness, Abubakar Umar.

Suswam and his former Commissioner for Finance, Omadachi Oklobia, are being prosecuted by the EFCC over allegations of corruption and money laundering to the tune of N3.1billion.

At the resumed trial yesterday, counsel to EFCC, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), told the court that the first defendant and his cohorts reached out to Umar to persuade him to change his earlier statement made at the commission.

When Jacobs read the statement the witness was said to have made claiming that he was coerced and pressurised by agents of the first defendant to change his statement, the witness responded in the affirmative.
Consequently, the prosecution said he would like to tender it in evidence.
But counsel to the defendants however objected to the admissibility of the document.

Suswam’s lawyers led by Joseph Daudu, in objecting to the admissibility of the document, said the original copy of the statement which was made in Hausa before it was translated to English ought to have been tendered before the court.
He argued further that the statement was signed by Umar’s in-law, one Yakubu Idris, who wrote and signed the statement and not by Umar, which according to him, is against the Evidence Act, which gives the maker of a statement opportunity to append his signature or initials on it.

Responding, Jacobs said there are two ways of contradicting a hostile witness. One, he said is by contradicting him with other evidence rather than with his previous statement or through a statement made at other times and that it is not limited to statement made before or after his evidence in chief.

According to him, Section 205 and 206 of the Evidence Act said the witness should give evidence that will not mislead the court.
“The purpose of tendering the very evidence is to show why the witness changed in his testimony. The first defendant was calling him and even asked him to go and see his lawyers”, Jacobs said

He stated further that the grounds given by the defence counsel were not tenable and urged the court to admit the document.
“The claim that the documents we seek to tender was made in Hausa and what we seek to tender is the English version, is not true.”
“The statement was written in English language and not in Hausa as alleged by the defence counsel.”
He said once a witness signed a statement, he is said to be the maker of such statement.

According to the prosecution, the witness could not write in English, so he asked his brother In-law who accompanied him to EFCC to write his statement for him and afterwards appended his signature.

But the defence counsel insisted that the signature on the document sought to be tendered by the prosecution was not signed by the witness himself, adding that a look at the document shows that the three signatures on it belong to his brother In-law, Idris.
After listening to the submissions of all counsel in the matter, trial judge, Justice Ahmed Mohammed, adjourned till March 14 for ruling on the objection and continuation of trial.

Earlier, Umar during cross-examination by Jacobs, reiterated that he helped the former governor changed about N3.1billion to its dollar of $15.6million at the then exchange rate between August and October 2014.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had earlier declared him a ‘hostile witness’ based on a different evidence in court outside the statement he made to the EFCC.