HON. Justice I.E. Ekwo, the presiding judge over a Federal High Court in Abuja, has on Wednesday, October 21, fixed December 4, 2020, to review the audio evidence, which captured Senator Shehu Sani’s voice extorting $25,000 from Alhaji Sani Dauda of ASD Motors, a Kaduna-based business man.
Senator Shehu Sani, a representative of Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the 8th Senate, was alleged to have demanded money on claims of using it to bribe Muhammad Tanko, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, and Ibrahim Magu, the now suspended chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), in an event where Abubakar Musa, Dauda’s estranged son-in-law, pressed charges on the anti-graft agency against him.
The petition from Dauda to the EFCC, following Sani’s alleged extortion, led to the commission’s investigation of the matter consequently leading to Sani’s eventual prosecution on a two-count criminal charge, bordering on name-dropping, influence-peddling and false pretence of obtaining the sum of $25,000.00.
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When the matter resumed on Wednesday, Prosecuting Witness 10, (PW10), Bako Aliyu, who doubles as an EFCC detective, and an investigating officer in the case confirmed to the court that the transaction as claimed by the petitioner was true.
The EFCC detective in his statement said, ‘We invited the two bureau de change operators and they confirmed to us that the complainant actually changed money into dollars from them. We also directed the complainant to record any conversation between him and the defendant which he did.’
He further said that, ‘We then collected two mobile phones from the complainant (an iPhone and a Samsung) and a phone (Samsung) from the defendant which we sent to our Forensic Department for further analysis. The result of the analysis showed lots of conversation between the two of them in Hausa and we translated them to English and burnt it on compact disk.’
The witness also informed the court that the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) has cleared himself from Sani’s alleged bribery claims by publishing a disclaimer on Daily Trust and The Punch. He also mentioned that the discourse the Commission’s officers had with the CJN over the matter further proved that he had nothing to do with the extortion.
However, it could be recalled that the EFCC on presenting the Prosecuting Witness 9, (PW9), Sharif Zailani Shanono, a bureau de change operator, revealed that Dauda on November 29, 2019, had informed him (Sharif Zailani Shanono) that he needed the sum of USD$10, 000 (Ten Thousand US Dollars), which he delivered to him through his aid, and on December 10, 2019, he (Dauda) transferred in Naira to his bank account, the sum of N3.9 million, which is an equivalent to the USD$10, 000 borrowed.
