A prosecution witness, Michael Wetkas yesterday gave details of how investigators were able to discover that Senate President, Bukola Saraki has a property in London, which he bought with a N375million loan from GT Bank, but allegedly failed to declare it.
Wetkas, while being cross-examined by Saraki’s lawyer, Paul Usoro (SAN) at the resumption of the Senate President’s trial before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), said the London property was acquired by Saraki in 2010, but failed to declare it in the asset declaration form he completed at the expiration of his second term as Governor of Kwara State in 2011.
The witness, an operative of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said Saraki obtained the N375m loan from the Guaranty Trust Bank Plc in 2010 with which he procured the London property through a mortgage redemption payment system.
He said there was debit entry of $1.2million on the dollar account in favour of the pounds sterling account on February 10, 2010 and $1million on February 15, 2010.
The witness insisted that, as contained in Count 11 of the charge against Saraki, he failed to declare in 2011 the N375m loan as his liability and the property which he allegedly used the proceeds of the loan to buy.
Reading from the statement of Saraki’s account with GTB, the witness traced how the loan disbursed in Saraki’s naira account was transferred to his dollar account and later moved into Saraki’s pounds sterling account.
Wetkas said foreign investigative partners “unofficially” disclosed the address of the property as No 8, Whittaker Street, London and that it had a title number NGN802235.
He added that the foreign partners also disclosed “unofficially” that Saraki acquired another property with title number NGN 802661at No 7 of the same street in London in 2015.
The witness said his team discovered why Saraki got the loan in the letter by the GTB offering the N370m loan to the Senate President.
He also said the telex message also revealed that the transfer was for the purchase of a property.
“From the loan document attached to Exhibit 7, you will see the offer letter. It was stated in the offer letter that the loan was for the purchase of property in London.
“We got to be convinced when we saw the telex showing that the fund was wired for property; the mortgage redemption was for property. We were convinced based on the offer letter and the remittances shown on the telex,” he said.
Wetkas said the three telexes showing the actual transfer from Saraki’s pounds sterling account were prepared by the GTB, and that the telex messages only talked about mortgage redemption.
When asked why he failed to get details and the mortgage agreement on the London property, the witness explained that GTB officials claimed that Saraki did not disclose the details to the bank.
“I asked the bank the details of the property and the address. They said it was not disclosed to them. I found something unusual and asked them, how they could give a loan for a property they did not know its details. I know that the transactions are usually clear. Sometimes the property is used as collateral. But the bank said it was not a problem since it was cash back loan,” he said.
The witness said apart from the telex messages and the offer letter for the loan, he did not have any other document linking Saraki to the said property.
He also said he did not question Saraki on the details of the property during investigation and did not see the mortgage agreement.
“We contacted our foreign partners to help us find out about the property the defendant bought in London between 2010 a 2015. The confirmed to us that the defendant bought two properties – one in 2011 and the other in 2015.
“They told u No 8, Whittaker Street, London, with title number NGN802235 was purchased in 2011 and that the second one with title number NGN 802661 which was at No. 7 of the same street was bought in 2015. This information was sent to us unofficially, and they promised to send it to us officially soon so that we can tender it,” he said.
On Count 5, in which Saraki was accused of failing to declare his property at 37 A Glover Road, Ikoyi, Lagos and his alleged annual income of N5.5m on the asset, the witness said his team discovered that the property was acquired by Saraki through his company, Carlisle Properties Limited while executing a search warrant on the company’s office.
“The Managing Director of the companies – Carlisle and Skyview promised to furnish us with the list but he never came back. We executed a search warrant on the office at No 30 Saka Tinubu, Victoria Island, Lagos, and we found a list of properties yielding income for the defendant. The document we got in course of the search was where we got the information.
“There is no signature on the list. The officers there at the office when the document was obtained and they signed for all the document recovered from there. We interacted with the Managing Director, Mr. Kennedy Sule Izuagbe.
“He told us that all the properties were managed on behalf of the defendant. He also said the transactions were on behalf of the defendant. I was not privy to any communication between Izuagbe and the defendant. The Managing Director said he was going to come back to clarify on the properties he managed but he never came back,” Wetkas said.
The trial resumes next Wednesday.