The trial of former Minister of Power, Saleh Mamman, continued before Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja, with the first prosecution witness, Abubakar Kwaido, testifying that the defendant voluntarily gave his confessional statements in the presence of his lawyer.
Mamman is facing a 12-count charge related to alleged conspiracy and money laundering amounting to N33.8 billion, in connection with the Mambilla Power Project.
Testifying during a trial-within-trial session on Tuesday, Kwaido, an investigator with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), debunked claims by the defence that Mamman’s statements were obtained under duress.
According to Kwaido, the defendant requested that his lawyer write the statement on his behalf due to health challenges.
“I Saleh Mamman has authorized my lawyer Mohammed Ahmed of Pineal Solicitors to write on my behalf due to ill health and other health challenges, in support of this I have submitted a medical report to that effect,” the authorization form, signed by Mamman, read.
Kwaido explained that the process of taking the statement was audio-visually recorded in a general office where multiple parties could observe the proceedings.
“Mamman said he wanted to dictate while his lawyer wrote because he was not feeling well,”
Kwaido told the court.
The EFCC investigator also disclosed that after the initial interrogation, Mamman failed to return for further questioning as agreed.
“The defendant was supposed to report back to our office two weeks after the initial interrogation but he absconded for about six months. We were calling and sending him messages to report to our office for further statements and he wrote to us through his lawyers for a reprieve of few days to report, suggesting 14 and 20 February 2024 and he chose to come on the 20 and when he came, we interviewed him and his lawyer was smiling all through and nobody threatened him. They were surprised to hear that he was threatened,” Kwaido said.
“We have been communicating with him, he mentioned his business partners which we asked him to contact them and there are other documents we asked him to come with but he said we should give him two weeks and he did not come back,” he added.
The court played the video recording of the confessional statement during Tuesday’s proceedings.
At the last sitting, defence counsel Femi Atteh had accused the prosecution of failing to produce the audio-visual recording of Mamman’s statement.
The trial within trial was adjourned to April 10, 2025 for continuation.
