TheCable

The Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) has accused Ayodele Fayose, former governor of Ekiti state, of “threatening and compromising” one of the witnesses in the ongoing N2.2bn fraud case against him.

The EFCC is prosecuting Fayose for allegedly taking N2.2bn from the office of Sambo Dasuki, ex-national security adviser (NSA), for his governorship election in 2014.

At the resumed trial on Friday, Rotimi Jacobs, EFCC counsel, told C.J. Aneke, the presiding judge, that Fayose had threatened Adewale Aladegbola, a witness, who is a bullion van driver with Zenith Bank, Ado-Ekiti branch.

Jacob said the alleged threat had made Aladegbola change his testimony before Mojisola Olatoregun, the judge who had earlier presided over the case, from what he had written in his statement during the investigation.

He said the anti-graft agency had no choice than to replace Aladegbola.

“I called a witness and he was kidnapped by the defence. The witness was taken over by the defendant (Fayose) and approached by him,” Jacobs said.

“We obtained a statement from that witness to confirm what happened and I even had to stop further action on the issue by the EFCC.

“Only in our country that this type of things happen; the witness before Olatoregun J., was compromised by this defendant.”

He accused the former governor of attempting to pervert the course of justice, saying: “If not because of my intervention, this defendant would have been facing another charge”.

However, Ola Olanipekun and Olalekan Ojo, Fayose’s lawyers, opposed the attempt to replace Aladegbola with Johnson Abidakun, who is the head of operations of the bank.

They argued that the prosecution does not have the liberty to change a witness because he failed to give a piece of evidence “favourable to them”.

They described the attempt to substitute Aladegbola with Abidakun as “an abuse of prosecutorial power by the EFCC”.

“We are coming from the doctrine of prosecutorial misconduct. No prosecutor or any defendant is entitled to abuse the judicial process. This witness was called to right the wrongs of a witness earlier called by the prosecution,” they said.

They, therefore, prayed the court to stop Abidakun from testifying in place of Aladegbola and urged the judge to allow them bring a formal application to address the issue.

The case was adjourned till November 28 for ruling.