By Peter Omopo
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Thursday presented two key witnesses in the ongoing trial of a former Deputy Director of Highways at the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Augustine Olowoniyan, and a surveyor, Sulaiman Muhammed, over the alleged diversion of N1.9 billion in public funds.
The trial, which is before Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, Apo, Abuja, involves a three-count charge bordering on the misappropriation of N1,936,961,649.00 allocated for acquiring land titles for federal roads between March 4, 2019, and July 17, 2020.
The EFCC, in a statement shared via its official X handle on Friday, said the charges were brought under Section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.
The first prosecution witness, William Abimbola, a compliance officer with United Bank for Africa (UBA), told the court that the bank had received a request from the EFCC to provide information on accounts linked to the defendants and another individual, Ogueri Paschal.
Abimbola detailed the procedure for retrieving and authenticating account statements and account opening documents from the bank’s system. “The EFCC requested for statements of accounts and account opening packages,” he said. “The statement was extracted from the system of the bank’s server and compared with what we have on the computer to ensure it is the same. Our information is stored in the computer.”
He confirmed that the requested documents were printed, verified, and forwarded to the anti-graft agency as part of the investigation.
The trial continues.
