…..says ‘I surrendered N9.08bn within three weeks to EFCC account in CBN’
…..It’s absurd, immoral for ex-banker on trial to tesify against Magu – Lawyer
A former First Bank of Nigeria Plc Executive Director, Dauda Lawal, on Saturday, testified against the suspended acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, before the Justice Ayo Salami-led presidential panel.
The witness, Lawal, has been standing trial before a Federal High Court in Lagos for allegedly receiving $25m out of the $153m allegedly looted by a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke.
It was learnt that Lawal was invited as part of a probe into the lapses in investigations by the EFCC under Magu.
The former banker was said to have been asked by the panel to testify without prejudice to his ongoing corruption trial.
But Magu, it was gathered, walked into the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja at about 12noon, while Lawal was giving his testimony.
The suspended acting EFCC boss was said to have arrived at the venue of the panel’s sitting three hours before his scheduled appearance.
It was further learnt that Magu, whose earlier plea to witness the hearing was turned down by the panel, was eventually permitted to do so.
Lawal was, however, said to have repeated the allegations he made against the EFCC in a counter-affidavit he filed in 2017 before Justice Muslim Hassan of the Federal High Court.
EFCC had frozen Lawal’s accounts and applied for the permanent forfeiture of his funds, which the ex-banker challenged.
In a counter-affidavit he deposed to, which formed the basis for his invitation by the panel, Lawal said the EFCC detained him for 11 days in 2016 and promised to release him only on the condition that he returned some funds.
Explaining how he received the $25m, Lawal said he received a call from a friend, Stanley Lawson in March 2015 to help him collect the money, which he later paid into an account provided for him.
“I had no idea of the origin of the said funds and only acted in the course of normal banking business,” he said.
Lawal said the EFCC allegedly compelled him to provide funds he never received, adding in his affidavit, “Having been invited and subsequently detained in Lagos for 11 consecutive days and without access to members of my immediate family, the EFCC investigators kept suggesting and insisting that there was a shortfall of $40m, which I had yet to account for.
“They were alleging that I had in fact taken $65m as opposed to the $25m, which I stated that I had received. The EFCC investigators interrogating me made it clear that the only way that I could/would leave detention is if I made their suggested shortfall available to them.
“Because I never had this EFCC invented $40m to give, I had to use my personal connections to source for and raise about 50 per cent of the said amount while I was in detention. I managed to borrow some of the money from the bank where I am an executive director and surrendered it to the EFCC through my legal counsel and was eventually released from detention on May 20, 2016.
“Consequently, in a three-week period between May 13 and June 6, 2016, I was made to surrender to the EFCC Recovery Account at the Central Bank of Nigeria the total sum of N9.08bn.”
But Magu’s counsel, Tosin Ojaomo, described as immoral and absurd for the former banker, who is currently standing trial, to be invited to give evidence against his client before the panel.
