EFCC: Metuh named Jonathan in torn statement

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says Olisa Metuh, spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), named former President Goodluck Jonathan in the statement he allegedly destroyed while in custody of the anti-graft agency.

Junaid Said, a staff of the commission, told a FCT high court that in the statement, Metuh admitted that he received N400 million arms money, which was used for political activities, his personal needs, and assignments delegated by Jonathan.

Led in evidence by Sylvanus Tahir, the EFCC counsel, Said, a special task force team member of EFCC, claimed that the team received a petition in January 2016 from the office of the national security adviser (NSA) which alleged that N400 million was transferred to Destra Investment Limited, a company owned by Metuh.

The EFCC witness said investigations revealed that the transfer was done without any contract approval. He said the team visited the residence of Metuh at Prince and Princess Estate, Abuja, on January 5, and invited him to the commission.

Said told the court that Metuh honoured the invitation and was interrogated by Ibrahim Musa, Michael Wetkas, Bello Umar, David Nkpe, Bello Adama and Eucharia Ibrahim. The EFCC witness said the defendant volunteered a statement to the commission.

“My Lord, when he concluded writing his statement, which was on four sheets of the EFCC statement form, I collected the statement and read over it, I then handed the statement over to my superiors Musa and Wetkas,” he said.

“When I was handing over the statement, the defendant said he was surprised that he had written that much and that he felt he had given too much information.

“Because of the comment, I was worried; I gave him the statement sheets one after the other for endorsement. He endorsed the first and second sheet, but he tore the third sheet.

“The third sheet was where the defendant disclosed that he received the money for PDP political activities, settle his personal needs and made reference to former President Goodluck Jonathan.

“My lord, he suddenly tore the statement sheet into pieces. In great shock and surprise, I stood up [and] I asked him why he did what he did. He said he did that because he was no longer willing to give the information on that statement sheet.

“I then requested the pieces of the statement, he declined and attempted to put them in his pocket, I then cautioned him and told him to respect himself; he insisted that he was going to dispose the torn sheet.

“I persuaded him to handover the tore sheet and brought one plain paper before him; he poured the pieces on the plain sheet. My other colleagues were there looking at us in surprise as well.

“He furthered tore them into pieces, saying only in the movies would this be recovered. I poured the pieces in the commission’s transparent polythene bag for exhibit and made entry of the incident into the EFCC’s incident duty station diary as well as EFCC’s pocket notebook.

“Later, in the day he requested to make additional statement, which he made, wrote his name and signed but declined to make any other statement on the torn paper.”

The EFCC’s incident duty station diary, EFCC’s pocket notebook and the torn pieces were tendered and admitted as exhibits.

Said admitted under cross examination by Onyechi Ikpeazu, Metuh’s counsel, that the issue of the torn sheet was not written in his statement.

Ikpeazu demanded for the witness statement, but the prosecuting counsel gave him a photocopy of the statement, saying the defendant should have served him with notice to produce the document.