Alleged N400m Fraud: Metuh Wants President Jonathan in Witness Box

Alex Enumah

Former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olisa Metuh, yesterday revealed plans to get former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, to testify in his ongoing trial of allegations of fraud against him before the Abuja division of the Federal High Court.

Metuh’s desire to get Jonathan into the witness box through a court order is coming just as former National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki, has said he would not appear in court to testify for Metuh until he is released from custody.

The Court of Appeal in Abuja had on September 29 ordered the Department of State Service (DSS) to produce Dasuki before the Federal High Court in Abuja to enable him to testify as Metuh’s witness.

Metuh and his company, Destra Investments Limited, are been prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a seven-count charge of money laundering involving alleged cash transaction of $2million.

He is also alleged to have received the sum of N400million meant for procurement of arms from the NSA office on November 22, 2014.

At the resumed trial yesterday, counsel to Metuh, Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), told the trial Judge, Justice Okon Abang, that he had written to Jonathan, requesting him to appear in court to give evidence on behalf of his client but that the former president did not reply.

Consequently, Ikpeazu informed the court that he had intention to apply for subpoena to be issued on Jonathan to appear in court and testify.

“We have another witness on subpoena, and at the end of the evidence of this other witness, we will take a decision on whether or not the first defendant (Metuh) will testify.

“The other witness we want to subpoena is Goodluck Jonathan, former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“We did not before now apply to compel Jonathan to appear on this matter. We wrote a letter but he did not respond and our plan will be to apply for the subpoena after the first application for subpoena to be issued on Dasuki,” Ikpeazu told the court.

Responding, prosecuting counsel, Sylvanus Tahir, said it is the duty of the counsel of the first defendant not to harbour that as an intention but to accomplish it with necessary application.

Midway into the trial, Justice Abang informed the court that he had complied with the decision of the Court of Appeal which held that he should compel Dasuki who is been held by the DSS to appear in court and give evidence.He said the subpoena was signed on October 3, and called on the court registrar to confirm service on the DSS.

Justice Abang said the court had already scheduled the former NSA to appear in court October 25 to tell the court all he knew about the matter.

He also informed the court of a motion by counsel to Dasuki, Ahmed Raji (SAN), and called on him to identify his application.

Responding, Raji told the trial judge that he is opposing the request to compel the ex-NSA to testify as defence witness. did not cover territories and dependencies where most of the stolen assets from developed countries ended up.

Osinbajo said while governments and citizens stand to benefit from increased revenues, better law enforcement in this area should improve citizens’ welfare as a result of more ownership transparency.

He however warned that care must be taken not to frame this campaign as a zero-sum between society and business.

“Legitimate businesses benefit not only from the better business climate that results when governments better serve their citizens but also from knowing who they are doing businesses with or competing against, they benefit from a level playing field, lower costs of doing business, and from reduced reputational risks,” he added.

The vice president seized the opportunity to list actions taken by Nigeria in tackling this problem. Recalling that Nigeria was one of the first set of countries to join the EITI, one of the 12 EITI-implementing countries that piloted beneficial ownership disclosure, and one of the few countries that have disclosed beneficial ownership details in three audit reports, he said through Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), a comprehensive roadmap that would culminate in the establishment of the register of beneficial owners of companies operating in the nation’s extractive sector had been published.

Osinbajo said Nigeria was taking the initiative beyond the extractive sector, citing the commitment President Muhammadu Buhari made at the May 2016 London Anti-Corruption Summit to establish a public register of the beneficial owners of all companies operating in the country.

“In December 2016, Nigeria joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP) and submitted a National Action Plan that prioritises the establishment of this allencompassing and publicly accessible register. These are commitments that we made with all sense of seriousness. They are commitments that we made not because we are seeking applause or commendation, but because we are convinced they are in our best interests.

“To further reinforce our determination by our course of actions we presented a draft Money Laundering Prevention and Prohibition Bill to the National Assembly in 2016. The 2016 draft Money Laundering (Prohibition) (Amendment) Act attempts to cure the deficiency of the 2011 Act Money Laundering (Prohibition) (Amendment) Act No. 11, 2011 to bring it in line with the FATF standards and it contains robust provisions on removing the barriers to full beneficial ownership disclosure in our laws,” he said.

In his remarks, Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, while noting that his country is a victim of hidden corporate ownership, said despite being the 15th largest economy, tax revenue was still very low. He added that the leaked Panama papers, which had several Indonesian names helped his country to put pressure on corporate tax evaders.

He therefore called for automatic exchange of information among all countries so that there will be no safe havens anywhere in the world for companies with opaque ownership.

Top Nigerian officials on the entourage of the Vice President billed to participate in various panels at the conference include Minister of Solid Minerals, Dr. Kayode Fayemi; Minister of State for Budget and Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed; Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mr. Waziri Adio; and some senior officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).