The Special Offences Division of the Lagos High Court in Ikeja has admitted more documents tendered as exhibits by the prosecution in the trial of the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele.
Justice Rahman Oshodi overruled the objections of the defence counsels in the case. He admitted the documents in evidence and also ordered a trial-within-trial to verify whether the statement the second defendant, Mr Henry Omoile, wrote in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), was made voluntarily.
Mr Omoile is standing trial alongside Mr Emefiele on a 19-count charge of abuse of office, receiving gratification, accepting gifts through agents, corruption, and fraudulent property transactions involving $4.5 billion and N2.8 billion.
At the proceedings on Thursday, Justice Oshodi first admitted in evidence, a bundle of documents extracted from the mobile phone of Mr John Adetola, the former Executive Assistant of the first defendant, Mr Emefiele, during the EFCC’s investigation.
After this, lead prosecuting counsel, Mr Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN), continued with the testimony of the eighth prosecution witness, Alvan Gurumnaan, an operative with the anti-graft agency, who provided more insights into the evidence uncovered during the investigation.
NAIJAONPOINT said the team uncovered how Mr Emefiele allegedly received monies totalling $600,000 personally and through proxies. He added that a particular CBN contractor, Mr Victor Onyedua, said under Interrogation that he allegedly paid kickbacks to “management of the CBN ” before receiving payments for the execution of some contracts.
The prosecution tendered another bundle of documents to prove awards of contracts by the CBN to Mr Onyedua, which he had presented to the EFCC team.
The lead counsel for both defendants, Senior Advocates, Mr Olalekan Ojo and Mr Rasheed Gbadamosi, urged the court to reject the documents. They argued that being public documents belonging to the CBN, only their certified true copies are admissible.
In his response, Mr Oyedepo said the documents form part of correspondence from Mr Onyedua to the agency, and so are original copies and public documents, which don’t need any further certification to be rendered admissible.
The court admitted the documents ruling that where a document is validly admissible, its attachment goes with it.
Mr Adetola’s phone was also admitted as an exhibit, with the court granting leave to the defence to inspect it in due course.
However, the counsel to the second defendant rejected a bid by the prosecution to tender some statements of the second defendant made during investigation, alleging it was written without his lawyer present.
After legal arguments, Justice Oshodi ordered a trial-within-trial to verify how the statements were made and adjourned to December 2 and 3.
The court also ordered parties to return on November 21, 2025 for a report on modalities for the defence to conduct a forensic inspection of a phone and WhatsApp conversations earlier presented by the EFCC.