A witness in the ongoing trial of an Executive Director, Maritime Labour and Cabotage of the Nigerian Maritime Administration Safety Agency, Calistus Nwabueze Obi, and Alu Dismas, the Personal Assistant to the former Director General of the agency, Patrick Akpobolokemi, on Monday told a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos how his company received the sum of N102 million from NIMASA without executing any contract.
The witness, Kolomi Mohammed, a Bureau de Change operator, made the disclosure when he was asked to explain the financial transactions which occurred on August 5, 2014 and January 21 and 22, 2015 between his company and NIMASA.
In those three days, it was discovered that a total sum of N102 million was transferred from the account of the Committee on Intelligence Gathering in NIMASA to the account of Kostan Mega Concept Limited, a company belonging to the witness.
Kolomi told the court that on August 5, 2014, one Sule Usaini, a colleague of his came to him with a business and asked for his company’s account number.
He said after he gave Sule his company’s account number, there was a credit of N12 million, which he subsequently converted into Dollar and gave to Usaini.
Also on January 21 and 22, 2015, there was another transaction of N49.5 million on each of those days from the account of the Committee on Intelligence Gathering into his account and he gave the Dollar equivalent to Usaini.
When Usaini came in as PW 6, he confirmed that he introduced the transactions of August 5, 2014 and January 21 and 22, 2015 to Kolomi.
He further explained that the transaction came about when the second defendant approached him and asked him to provide his account number that he wanted to buy Dollar from him.
Usaini said he told Dismas that he doesn’t have an account number but he later obtained Kolomi’s account number and sent it to Dismas via text message.
Usaini continued that after he gave Dismas the account number, Dismas contacted him and asked if he had received an alert, to which he responded that a credit of N12 million had entered the account of Kostan, having already confirmed this from Kolomi.
He narrated the same story on the transactions of January 21 and 25, 2015.
He told the court that the money was converted into Dollar and given to the second defendant, Alu Dismas.
He said on one occasion, he took the Dollar to Dismas’ ninth floor office in NIMASA building at 4, Burma Road, Apapa, Lagos and on another occasion, he took the money to Banana Island where he handed Dismas the Dollar equivalent.
Earlier in the trial, the prosecution had called one Roland Chikwendu, an account officer of one of the companies of the first defendant, Calistus Nwabueze Obi, Granpac Limited.
In his evidence, Chikwendu told the court how Obi allegedly siphoned the sum of N47.255 million form the account of the Committee on Intelligence Gathering and Technical Ratification of NIMASA through the account of Granpac Limited.
He further explained to the court how the monies were eventually disbursed to other companies allegedly belonging to Obi and some individuals.
According to the witness, Obi is the sole signatory to the account of Granpac Limited.
PW 2 was Sa’idu Yusuf from Heritage Bank and an account officer to Global Seal Limited.
In his evidence, Yusuf disclosed how Global Seal Limited received N15 million from NIMASA and Obi disbursed same amount to himself and few other companies belonging to him.
He rounded off his evidence by identifying Obi as the sole signatory of the account of Global Seal Limited.
PW3 was stood down by the court because the counsel representing the first, third and fourth defendants, O. Akanni (SAN), objected to the introduction of the witness as the witness’ name was not part of the proof of evidence.
Justice Olanturegun asked the prosecution to produce another witness and leave PW3 until the next adjourned date.
PW 4, Oliver Ewerem, a compliance officer in Access Bank, in his evidence confirmed all the transaction earlier mentioned from the account of Committee on Intelligence Gathering, which is domiciled at Access Bank.
The case was adjourned to May 17, 2016 for continuation of trial.
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