The resumed trial of Abubakar Ali Peters and his company, Nadabo Energy Limited, over an alleged N1.4 billion oil fraud, is underway before Justice Sedoton Ogunsanya of the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting Mr. Peters and his company on a 21-count charge bordering on obtaining money under false pretense, diversion of Federal Government funds, and forgery.
The trial, which began in October 2015, resumed on Wednesday with the opening of the second prosecution witness, the EFCC’s chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, who is testifying on his role investigating the case, as the then deputy on the agency’s subsidy investigation team.
Mr. Bawa told the court that the team found that the defendant falsified the volume of petrol that he imported into the country, using forged documents.
“He claimed to have imported about 12,000 metric tonnes of PMS, while our investigation revealed that he imported about 6,000 metric tonnes of PMS. We wrote to the Petroleum Products Price and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), asking them to re-compute the actual payment to the defendant. They wrote back that the company was paid more than N1.4bn, he should have been paid about N606m.”
The witness also said the 2nd defendant was found to be the one managing subsidy transactions in the company.
The defense counsel, Osagie Isiramen, objected to the tendering of several exhibits by the EFCC, including letters written to various bodies seeking information on the defendants’ transactions.
The judge overruled his objections, ruling that the documents were properly obtained during the course of its investigation.
