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A witness on Wednesday testified before the Federal High Court in Abuja revealing that the spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, had N400 million paid into his account on November 24, 2014 by the office of a former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is prosecuting Mr. Metuh for allegedly receiving N400 million from Mr. Dasuki.
The money is believed to be part of an alleged $2.1 billion Mr. Dasuki is accused of diverting while he was NSA.
The witness, Eno Mfon Effiong, a staff of Diamond Bank, is the fourth Prosecution Witness ((PW4) to testify before Justice Okon Abang on the case involving Mr. Metuh.
She is a customer relations manager at the bank, with the responsibility of attending to customer requests, packaging credits facilities, and managing customers’ accounts.
Ms Effiong informed the court that she managed Dextra Investment Limited account since Feb 10,2014 when the company opened the account at her bank.
She also told the court that on November 24, 2014, the sum of N400m was paid into the account of Dextra investment’s Limited from the office of the NSA.
She said the company operated five accounts and that Mr. Metuh once demanded statements of his account, which was delivered to him in his residence.
At that point, Mr. Metuh’s lawyer, Emeka Etiaba, objected to the presentation of some documents by the witness.
Mr. Itiaba told the court that one of the documents, a letter, did not relate to the statement of the witness.
He further argued that the witness is not the originator of the documents presented and should therefore not testify regarding it.
Mr. Itiaba prayed the court to discountenance the documents tendered by the witness, saying most of them did not comply with section 84 of the Evidence Act.
Responding, however, the prosecution counsel, Sylvanus Tahir, urged the court to dismiss the objection for lack of merit, stating that its aim was to mislead the court.
Mr. Tahir’s prayer was upheld by Justice Abang.
Earlier, the judge turned down the request of Mr. Itiaba who prayed the court to stay proceedings on Mr. Metuh’s substantive suit, following the absence of the defendant’s lead counsel, Onyeachi Ikpeazu.
Mr. Itiaba had told the court that Mr. Ikpeazu could not make it to the session, as he was attending to an election matter, which was time bound at the Supreme Court.
But in his submission, Mr. Abang held that Mr. Ikpeazu failed to inform the court in writing about his absence.
The Judge said Mr. Itiaba cannot be allowed to make such an appeal through the backdoor for Mr. Ikpeazu.
He therefore ruled that the hearing continue after the ruling on Mr. Metuh’s application for the variation of the terms of his (Mr Metuh’s) bail condition.
As part of his ruling on the application for the variation, Mr. Abang adjusted an earlier decision he made on the expected location of assets belonging to Mr. Metuh’s sureties.
Mr. Abang, who had earlier ruled that the sureties must have assets only in Maitama area of Abuja, said the sureties could now have assets from any part of the Federal Capital.
He however added that no further appeals would be considered on the variation of bail terms, stressing that the defendants had the prerogative of appealing the decision of the court in a higher court if they were not satisfied by it.
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