Two additional witnesses on Wednesday testified against Senator Shehu Sani before Justice I.E. Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
One of them, Mohammed Sani, son of Kaduna-based Alhaji Sani Dauda (ASD), who is the plaintiff in the matter disclosed how he followed the advice of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and recorded the conversations between his father and Senator Sani.
Senator Sani, who represented Kaduna Central senatorial district is facing EFCC’s prosecution on two-count criminal charges, bordering on name-dropping, influence-peddling and obtaining by false pretence to the tune of $25,000.00 from Alhaji Dauda.
Mohammed Sani, who testified as prosecution witness seven (PW7), told the court that he was the one who set up a phone in his father’s office and also in his home in Kaduna that recorded the conversation between his father and Shehu Sani, which has been rendered as evidence in Senator Sani’s prosecution.
“We went to EFCC’s office on Monday after Shehu Sani stopped picking and responding to my dad’s calls and text messages, to write a statement on the issue. I needed to be there too to write my own part of the story because I was the one who called Abubakar, a bureau de change operator, telling him that my dad needed United States Dollars equivalent of N5 million.
Read also: $25,000 FRAUD: Shehu Sani knelt, begged me to change my statement, witness tells court
“At the commission’s office, they told us to record any conversations between my dad and Shehu Sani, and that’s how we started recording him. I set the phone for recording in my dad’s office in Abuja and also in Kaduna, where Shehu Sani came with his brother, one Dr. Ibrahim asking my father to change his statement with EFCC,” Sani said.
The witness further told the court that EFCC later collected his dad’s two phones and his own phone as exhibits in the case.
Prosecution witness eight (PW 8), Fatima Asabe Umar, an EFCC staff in the Digital Forensic Department, who conducted forensic examinations on the phones, also testified.
“As a digital forensic analyst, I examine, analyze mobile devices, computers, and any digital device that have memory among many others. I received a memo from Ibrahim Musa of the AMCON Desk of the Commission, requesting us to extract a record from the two Samsung mobile phones and one iPhone.
“Immediately after receiving the request, I collected the devices, three phones. I examined them. Afterwards I wrote a report to the AMCON Desk, asking Bako Mohammed to come for the devices they brought. I gave them the report, and also burnt it into a compact disk and gave it to them,” she said.
After hearing the testimonies, the trial judge adjourned the case till July 9, 2020, for continuation of trial.
Opinions