753 Abuja duplexes: I didn’t get money directly from Emefiele, witness tells court

ABUJA— The trial of former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, resumed before a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, yesterday with a prosecution witness, Mr. Richard Agulu, a former banker, testifying that he never received any money directly from the defendant.

The witness, who was hitherto a staff member of Zenith Bank Plc, but currently works at the Nigeria Communications Commission, NCC, told the court that he only had interactions with Emefiele’s Personal Assistant, Mr. Eric Ocheme

I never received a dime directly from the defendant. I received the funds through his personal assistant, Eric Ocheme,” the witness insisted while he was being cross-examined by Emefiele’s lawyer, Mr. Matthew Burkaa.

Asked to confirm that he never saw the defendant giving his PA any money to give to him, the witness, said: “My lord I have never seen that, but he passes instructions through phone calls through Ocheme for me.”

However, when he was shown an extrajudicial statement he made on the case, the witness admitted that he never mentioned that the defendants gave instructions through phone.

I can not see anywhere I said phone, but I said it was by his instructions,” the witness added.
His extra-judicial statement was admitted in evidence and marked as Exhibit G.

Mr. Agulu who mounted the box as the third prosecution witness (PW-3), told the court that some of the transactions he referenced in his earlier testimony, were authenticated by the owners of Kelvito Integrated Services, Chukwuma Okpala and Ifeadigo Integrated Services, Peter Adebayo.

“It was with their instructions that the transaction was effected by the bank,” and the instructions were carried out by banking instruments, cheques.

“The defendant gives instructions to me through his personal assistant (Eric),” he stated.
According to the PW-3, the instructions he got through Ocheme were the banking instrument he worked on to carry out the transactions.

He said the instructions were not in the form of cheques, letters, email, or text.

The witness however admitted that going by CBN’s guidelines, as well as the operational manual policies of Zenith Bank, a staff member was only permitted to honour instructions an account holder gives through a formal communication, cheques, or the customer being present at the bank.

He stressed that neither Emefiele nor Ocheme was the account holder, a reason he said led him to include the owners’ names in the deposit slip anytime he deposited cash into their accounts.

Culled from vanguard