An Ikeja high court heard yesterday that Justice Rita Ofili- Ajumogobia lied about the source N8 million paid into her company’s account on February 4, 2015.
The 12th prosecution witness Abdullahi Lawal, told the court that when Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia, was confronted with her statement of account in respect the N8 million lodgement, she lied about the source and the purpose for the payment.
Lawal, an investigator of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC ) told the court that the judge told them that the money was from the sale of her land at Abeokuta.
“She said the land was sold to two people, she first mentioned one Haruna Abdullahi and later mentioned that the land was sold to one Tola.
“Our investigation revealed that Haruna was a Bureau De Change operator in Lagos here and there was no such transaction between the parties; whereas Tola was a building contractor; he was the contractor that handled the building of her residence at Parkview Estate and there was no form of land transaction between them.
“The payment of N8m was done by one Grand B Limited. There was no transaction between Grand B Ltd. and Nigel and Colive.”
Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC ) for alleged bribery and unlawful enrichment.
Among other things, the anti-graft agency accused her of receiving a total of $793,800 in several tranches from different sources between 2012 and 2015 “so as to have a significant increase in your assets that you cannot reasonably explain the increase in relation to your lawful income.”
Also being prosecuted alongside Ofili-Ajumogobia is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Godwin Obla, who was accused of giving the judge a bribe of N5million.
The two defendants had pleaded not guilty.
At the resumed trial on Friday, Lawal, testified before Justice Hakeem Oshodi, that one Omali Musa, an Assistant Comptroller at the Nigeria Customs Service, paid N12million on July 11, 2014 into the account of Nigel and Colive Limited.
According to him, the N12million was paid in three tranches of N4million, N3million and N5million on the same day.
During proceedings, the prosecution attempted to establish that the judge lied about being hospitalised at Gold Cross Hospital, Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.
The prosecution played in the open court the audio recording of two telephone conversations between Lawal and Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia.
In the first, Lawal’s voice was heard asking Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia if she was still at the hospital, to which she responded, “Yes.”
But when Lawal asked: “Which ward?” the judge, with what seemed to be a note of agitation or surprise in her voice, responded, “Are you here!” And as the investigator responded, “Yes, I am at the hospital”, there was no further response from the other end, while the investigator kept saying, “Hello! Hello! Hello!”
When asked by the prosecutor what happened, Lawal said, “What happened was that Honourable Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia’s phone went off; I was calling and she was not responding.”
Lawal explained that he decisided to call the judge on the telephone because he discovered that she was not at the hospital, contrary to what she had told the investigator during an earlier telephone conversation.
He said the audio recording of the second telephone conversation between the judge and the investigator indicated that the judge had told the investigator that she was hospitalised at Gold Cross Hospital.
According to him, the judge had assured them that she would report at the EFCC’s office as soon as she was discharged, saying she was not running away and that she would ask the doctors to discharge her soon since she was not as I’ll as they thought.
the investigator however told the court that he never intended visiting her at hospital when asked by the court.
He said they went to the hospital later just to confirm if the judge was there or not.
Further proceeding in the matter has been adjourned till February 23, 2018.
