An operative of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Rukayya Ibrahim on Thursday told an FCT High Court the fourth defendant in the ongoing N24 billion police pension scam trial, Veronica Onyegbula was never forced to make statements by the Commission.
Counsel to Onyegbula, Barrister Ernest Ikeji had told the court his client made some of statements in 2012 to the anti-corruption commission under duress leading to a trial within trial in the case.
However, led in evidence by the prosecution counsel Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), Ibrahim who is a member of the investigation team said all the statements made by Onyegbula were voluntarily made.
She added that Onyegbula even endorsed one of them on 13 March, 2012 at the back in the presence of a superior officer of the commission, Abdulrasheed Bawa, who is not a member of the pension task force.
Ibrahim said Bawa read the statement to her (Onyegbula) "word to word, sentence to sentence and she confirmed that she made the statement voluntarily without any duress. This happened almost a month after making her statement. She had all the opportunity to deny it."
The witness also revealed that Onyegbula was granted bail despite not meeting the conditions stipulated in the administrative bail given by the EFCC.
She said all the defendants were requested to produce two serving directors in federal service, who had to have landed property, which certified certificate of occupancy had to be produced.
She added "Mrs Veronica (Onyegbula) brought a person on the 16th February and brought another on the 17th February. Both of them are not even directors. By the time she brought the second person on the 17th, the bail application was approved."
The trial judge, Justice Husseini Baba-Yusuf adjourned the matter to April 25 and 27, at the instance of the Onyegbula’s counsel who said he was not prepared to cross examine the witness.
