MAMBILLA TRIAL UPDATE: EFCC amends charges after cross-examination
The court, in the case prosecuting the former Minister Agunloye over the 2003 Mambilla BOT contract, sat in earnest on Monday, 1 July 2024, on Apo High Court in Abuja. The prosecution promptly requested two things from the court. First, the prosecution lawyer reported the challenge the EFCC faced earlier in the day when the second Prosecution Witness, PW2 lined up suddenly declined to face the court because he said that his son had just passed away. The prosecution asked the court to bear with him and to grant an adjournment because he could not proceed with the case. Defence lawyers did not oppose this, and the court obliged.
The prosecution also sought to amend the “retroactive bribe” charges filed against Agunloye, sensing that the evidence brought by EFCC through the first Prosecution Witness (PW1) had been demolished under cross-examination by Agunloye’s lawyers at the last sitting on 11th of June 2024. The defence lawyer asked the prosecution if EFCC would want to be amending its charges each time these are demolished under cross-examinations. The defence lawyers, therefore, told the court that EFCC should file proper and formal motions to amend such charges each time. The court, accordingly, granted EFCC lawyers the leeway to regularise the amendment of the charges.
The court also considered the defence application to the court for the release of Dr. Agunloye’s international travelling passport to enable Dr. Agunloye to seek medical treatment abroad during the period when the courts go on break this year between the months of July and September. EFCC opposed this application on procedural grounds, but the defence lawyer called the attention of the court to note that all relevant procedures had been duly taken in the application.
The court adjourned to Wednesday, 17 July 2024, for the ruling of the court on the release of Agunloye’s Travelling Passport. The former Minister of Power and Steel was seen not in his usual self in court and court premises. He looked somewhat rumpled and was caught sleeping and being aided by his former colleagues from Federal Road Safety Corps.
Felix Omotola
Abuja. 1/7/24
