EFCC, Shema case adjourned to March

A Federal High Court sitting in Katsina has adjourned to March 12 and 13 this year for further cross examination of former Katsina Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) official, Nasir Ingawa in the ongoing trial of former governor of the state Ibrahim Shema.

The adjournment followed a request by the EFCC counsel Ufott Uket to enable him produce original documents as demanded by the court to the defence counsel in the matter.

The court had on November 26 last year ordered that the originals of the documents must be made available to the defendant whenever he requested for such documents through his counsel.

At resumption of sitting yesterday, Shema’s lead counsel Sabestine Hon (SAN) had drawn the attention of the court to contradictions and variations in the statements of the prosecuting lead witness, Ingawa, made to the EFCC, and those tendered orally before the court.

During the cross examination, Ingawa said the money mentioned in his statement was withdrawn from banks by the Sure-P Director of Finance, Abdulazeez Shinkafi, who passed it to him before handing it to Shema.

He however agreed that there was no evidence to show that neither he nor Shema collected any money from Shinkafi and that he has no proof to show the money was handed to Shema.

Hon thereafter asked for the documents to enable him crosscheck, for which the defence counsel pleaded with the court that they were not readily available.

The judge, Justice Hadiza Shagari reminded the EFCC counsel of her earlier directives and ordered that the original documents must be made available to the defendant and adjourned the matter accordingly.

It could be recalled that the EFCC had dragged former Governor Shema to the court over alleged misappropriation of N5.7bn SURE-P funds during his tenure as governor of the state.