Absence Of Defendants’ Counsel Stalls Trial In N1.4bn Oil Subsidy Fraud

A file photo of a court gavel.

The trial of Abubakar Peters and his company, Nadabo Energy Limited, for an alleged N1.4billion fraud failed to continue on Tuesday at the Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja, owing to the absence of the defence counsel in court.

Justice Christopher Balogun subsequently adjourned the matter until Wednesday.

Abubakar and his company were arraigned on December 10, 2012, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly using forged documents to obtain the sum of N1,464,961,978.24 from the Federal Government as oil subsidy, after allegedly inflating the quantity of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) purportedly imported and supplied by the company.

They pleaded “not guilty” to the charges.

At the last sitting of the court on November 16, Justice Balogun had admitted in evidence, the letters of investigation written by the EFCC to Petrocam Trading PYT Limited and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), as well as the responses from the two agencies.

The documents were tendered by the prosecuting counsel, Seidu Atteh, through the EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, who is the fifth prosecution witness and the lead investigator.

Bawa, who was expected to continue with his examination-in-chief, had told the court that the correspondences, which were thoroughly studied in the course of investigation, further exposed several activities embarked upon to defraud the Federal Government in fuel subsidy funds.

“We studied the responses from Petrocam and found out that, contrary to the claim of the defendant that Ashland Energy SA was the supplier, it was Petrocam Trading PYT Limited that supplied about 4,500 MT equivalent to about 6.5 million litres of PMS as against the claim of about 14,000 MT of PMS equivalent to about 19.8 million litres purportedly supplied by the defendant,” he said.

However, at the continuation of the proceedings, the counsel for the defence, was absent – a situation which stalled further testimony of the witness.

When asked by the court where his lawyer was, the defendant simply said, “He told me that his flight from Kaduna got cancelled.”

Atteh, however, asked the court to take note of the fact that “We have had similar excuses in the past.”

The trial judge also observed that the defence counsel gave no prior notice of his absence to either the court or the prosecution.

“In the circumstance, this court will give the first and second defendants the last chance till tomorrow morning, Wednesday, December 8, 2021, to continue with the hearing of this matter,” Justice Balogun held.