The National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Chief Olisa Metuh, implicated ex-president Goodluck Jonathan in the “confessional statement”, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) yesterday, told an Abuja High Court sitting at Maitama in Abuja. Recall the PDP spokesman was yesterday re-arraigned on an amended three-count charge bordering on destruction of evidence, mischief and obstruction of justice, contrary to sections 166 and 326 of the Penal Code Act, and section 38(2) of the EFCC Act, 2004.
According to the EFCC witness, Olisa Metuh, destroyed his “confessional statement” upon realizing that it directly linked former President Goodluck Jonathan to the alleged illegal diversion of funds meant for the procurement of arms. At the resumed hearing on the matter yesterday, EFCC brought one of its lead investigators, Mr. Junaid S’aid, to testify before the Chief Judge of the High Court, Justice Ishaq Bello who is presiding over Metuh’s trial.
S’aid told the court that: “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. 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 so I gave him the statement sheets, one after the other for endorsement. After endorsing the first and second sheets, to my surprise, the defendant tore the third sheet. My lord, he suddenly tore the statement sheet into pieces, in great shock and surprise I stood up, I asked him why he did what he did? He replied that 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 but he insisted that he was going to dispose the torn sheet.
“I persuaded him to handover the torn 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. At that point I poured the pieces in the commission’s transparent polythene bag as 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 witness maintained that the third sheet that was destroyed by Metuh revealed that he received the money from Dasuki to boost campaign activities of the PDP with a view to ensuring the re-election of ex-President Jonathan in the 2015 general election. Following demand by the defence lawyer, Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, Justice Bello, yesterday, directed EFCC to produce the original copy of the full statement of the witness. Further hearing on the case has been adjourned till 16th March 2016.
