A 13-year-old Idris Bashir (Haneef) has testified against his biological mother in a suit filed by his father accusing his wife and his father-in-law of dipping their hands into the lost-and-found foreign money found by his son, Idris Bashir, at a refuse dump about two years ago.
The counsel to Bashir Abdullahi the plaintiff, Barrister Bashir Mukaddam, told the court that sometime in 2022, the boy found about 50 bundles of hard currency suspected of US dollars in a nylon bag at a refuse dump at Tudun Fulani of Darmanawa in Tarauni Local Government Area of Kano State which he handed over to his mother.
She was said to have taken the money to her father for safekeeping.
However, the father was alleged to have started spending the money lavishly and even refused to give the plaintiff any share of it.
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In his response, counsel to the defendants, Barrister Abdulrahman Suleiman, said it was not true that Haneef found some missing money.
According to him, it was an old wallet designed with currency pictures, which he brought home and handed over to his mother and she kept it in her room.
“When Haneef told his father about what he found at a dump site, he asked her about the money.
“Surprised and jokingly, she told him that she had given it to her father. And after that, he never brought up the issue again until recently when she started hearing some accusations against her and her father.
“All she knows is that her son found an old wallet. But they do not trust her. As the matter continued to create chaos in the family she relocated to her father’s house. Later on, the case was taken to Kano Hisbah Board where they were reconciled and she went back to her husband‘s house,” the lawyer explained.
When Haneef was presented before the court, he testified against his mother and in support of his father telling the court that it was true that he found the money and handed it over to his mother.
The boy, however, neither identified the money he found nor could he say the exact amount he found.
The presiding judge, Justice Ibrahim Sarki Yola, said the court cannot take his testimony as a witness since he is a minor who could not differentiate a lot of things.
He then ordered the defendants to take an oath.
Holding the Holy Qur’an in their hands, the two defendants swore before the court that they had never spent any missing monies found and brought home by little Haneef.
The judge struck out the matter for lack of concrete evidence and dismissed the defendants.
He ordered that the defendants take an oath to exonerate themselves as beneficiaries of the said money in any way.
The defendants took an oath by swearing with the Quran. And the case was closed.
