MAMBILLA: The sixth EFCC witness, Liyel Imoke admitted: “I have no knowledge of the authenticity of the FEC Minutes and Conclusions of 21 May 2003”.
The court sat again on Monday, 2 November 2026 to continue the cross-examination of the sixth prosecution witness, PW6, Chief Liyel Imoke. Chief Imoke is both a very important personality in Nigeria and in the power sector. He was a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, former Sole Administrator of the National Electricity Board, NEPA; former Special Adviser to the President, former Minister of Power and Steel, and former Governor of Cross River State.
In his earlier testimony on 19 October 2026, he told the court that he was the Minister of Power who discovered in August 2003 that the BOT Contract awarded by his predecessor, Dr Olu Agunloye, the Defendant in the Mambilla case, was “null and void”. He told the court that he checked the Ministry’s files in August 2003 and found the FEC Minutes and Conclusion of the 21 May 2003 which showed that contract was not authorised and he therefore wrote a letter to Sunrise Power and Transmission Company on the 3rd of September 2003 to tell the Company so. He identified the FEC Minutes he read in 2003 as the Court Exhibit marked EFCC 3K. He told the court that he did not report his findings or encounter to the Police or to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) or to the sitting President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
Chief Imoke is also an important witness in this case because he is a real-life actor in the Mambilla Power Project saga as he was the Power Minister who took over from the Defendant in 2003. He was the Minister of Power who re-shaped the Mambilla Power Project to become a project which was re-awarded, cancelled and re-awarded some half a dozen times until it ended at the International Arbitration Court in France. Thankfully, the Federal Government of Nigeria eventually won the Arbitration case in September 2026.
On Monday, 2 November 2026, under cross examination, Chief Imoke told the court how the authentic Minutes of the Meetings of the Federal Executive Council are made. He said before the Judge, Hon Justice Jude Onwugbuezie that after each FEC meeting, the Minutes of the FEC Meeting would be circulated at the next meeting for checking and vetting for necessary corrections and amendments. He said the Motion for the adoption of the corrected Minutes would be moved and seconded, and that only adopted Minutes could be correctly referred to as FEC Minutes or FEC Conclusions.
Chief Imoke also admitted that the FEC Meeting of the 21 May 2003 was the last meeting of the 1999 – 2003 FEC before it was dissolved and that the next FEC Meeting was in August 2003 of a newly commissioned 2003 – 2007 FEC. When he was asked to tell the court at what stage the Minutes of the 21 May 2003 Meeting of FEC was circulated, vetted and adopted, he said: “I have no knowledge of this”. He was also asked if the Minutes of the 21 May 2003 was circulated for vetting at the first Meetings of the 2003 – 2007 FEC of which he was a member, he also responded: “I have no knowledge of this”, The Prosecution lawyer objected to what he told the Court was the “repetitive attempts of the Defence to force the Witness to answer his questions in a particular way after the Witness had already answered in a simple way”. The Judge agreed with the Prosecution and told the Defence not to waste the time of court because “the witness had already said he has no knowledge of the matter”.
However, Mr Adeola Adedipe, SAN, leading the Defence Lawyers did not back down. He insisted that the Witness was not being specific enough on the questions pertaining to the tendered FEC Minutes, marked Exhibit EFCC 3K, a document which he said was critical to the criminal charges against the Defendant. The Judge allowed him to rephrase his questions. The Defence then asked: “Can you tell the court if the Minutes of the FEC Meeting of 21 May 2003 was vetted and adopted by the 1999 – 2003 FEC or the 2003 – 2007 FEC?” to which the Witness, PW6 responded: “I cannot recollect, I have to check the records”. The Judge then handed the court records to the witness in spite of an initial objection by the Prosecution lawyer, Mr. Abba Muhammed, SAN.
When the witness (Chief Liyel Imoke) appeared to be dragging in checking the court records, the Judge had to stand down the proceedings to enable the Witness, Chief Imoke to have enough time to check through the court records. However, when the case resumed about 45 minutes later, the Prosecution Lawyer, instead of presenting Chief Imoke on the Witness Box, only pleaded for an adjournment to enable the Witness to properly check the court records and other records outside the court to be able to answer the question of the Defence. Consequent upon this, the Judge adjourned the case until 19 November 2026.
#AbujaNews. 2 November 2026
