The Federal High Court, Abuja Division, on Tuesday discharged and acquitted Winifred Oyo-Ita, former head of service of the federation, of money laundering offences, six years after the trial began.

Justice James Omotosho, in a ruling on the separate no-case submissions filed by Ms Oyo-Ita and her co-defendants, held that their applications were meritorious.

The former HoS, her personal assistant, Ubong Effiok, and seven others faced an alleged money-laundering charge of N570 million.

Mr Omotosho, in the ruling, held that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s case “was built on the quicksand of speculations, suspicions and shoddy investigation”.

“I must say here that the case presented by the prosecution has no weight whatsoever. Crucial elements of money laundering offences, which are the establishment of a predicate offence, were glaringly absent in this case presented by the prosecution,” Mr Omotosho said.

The judge held that Ms Oyo-Ita, the first defendant in the 18-count charge, was not a shareholder or director of the companies allegedly linked to her.

Mr Omotosho also held that the monies allegedly given to the ex-HoS by the third and fifth prosecution witnesses had not been shown to be proceeds of illegal activity.

According to the judge, her alleged failure to fully disclose her assets was also not thoroughly investigated,, and the result is a case doomed to fail.

“In final analysis, the no-case submissions filed by the first, second and third defendants on the one hand, the fourth to sixth defendants and the seventh to ninth defendants are meritorious.

“Consequently, these no-case submissions are hereby upheld. Accordingly, the 1st – 9th defendants are hereby discharged and acquitted of the 18-count charge,” Mr Omotosho ruled.

The EFCC had, on February 28, 2020, filed the 18 counts against Ms Oyo-Ita, Frontline Ace Global Services Ltd and Asanaya Projects Ltd as first to third defendants.

The commission, in the charge marked FHC/ABJ/CR/20/2020, also named Garba Umar, Slopes International Ltd, Gooddeal Investments Ltd, Ubong Okon Effiok, and U & U Global Services Ltd as the fourth to ninth defendants, respectively.

The defendants were being prosecuted for alleged fraud in relation to DTAs, Estacodes, conference fees, and receiving kickbacks on contracts to the tune of N570 million.

In count one, Ms Oyo-Ita, while serving as a deputy director in the Federal Ministry of Power, and Frontline Ace Global Services Ltd, a company incorporated in Nigeria and of which she was alleged to be the sole signatory of its bank accounts at Zenith Bank, were alleged to have, sometime in April 2010, committed the offence.

The ex-HoS and the company were alleged to have collaborated in disguising the genuine ownership of the N20 million paid by the ministry into the Frontline Ace Zenith Bank account number 1011518656, which sum was derived from an illegal act.

The offence is punishable under Section 14(1)b) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2004, among other counts.

Ms Oyo-Ita and her co-defendants, who were first arraigned on March 23, 2020, before Justice Taiwo Taiwo (retd.), pleaded not guilty to the 18 counts. The case, however, was reassigned to Mr Omotosho after Ms Taiwo’s retirement.

The EFCC called eight witnesses and tendered documentary evidence to establish its case. After the prosecution closed its case, the defendants elected to make a no-case submission.

The defendants, who argued that the prosecution had failed to establish any ingredient of the offences against them beyond a reasonable doubt to warrant any defence whatsoever, submitted that the commission had not made out a prima facie case against them.

Delivering the ruling, Mr Omotosho observed that a no-case submission is a situation where there is no sufficient evidence adduced by the prosecution on which the court can convict a defendant or for him to enter his defence.

According to him, it can also mean a situation in which the court appears to the prosecution to have failed to establish a prima facie case.

“The law presumes an accused person to be innocent until the contrary is proved and as such asking him to enter his defence will amount to asking him to prove his innocence,” he said.

The judge, who listed what the court must consider in upholding or dismissing a no-case submission in line with Section 303 of ACJA, held that the evidence led by the prosecution had not shown that the monies in counts one, two, three and four of the charge were tainted with unlawful activities.

“The law is trite that to establish money laundering offences, the prosecution is expected to establish a predicate offence first before the issues of disguising, concealing the origin or conversion of properties come in,” he said.

According to him, the prosecution’s allegation is only that monies were paid into the account of Frontline Ace Global Resources Limited.

The judge also observed that Ms Oyo-Ita was neither a director nor a shareholder in the second and third defendants.

Mr Omotosho held that the evidence of the fourth prosecution witness, who testified on the issue of estacode and duty allowances, was materially deficient and failed to advance the prosecution’s case.

“Notably, PW-4 did not provide any evidence establishing that the 1st defendant failed to embark on the official journeys in question. There is no proof before the court that estacodes or duty allowances were approved and subsequently collected without the corresponding trips being undertaken.

According to the judge, this omission is significant and undermines the prosecution’s theory.

The judge held that mere tendering of copies of Ms Oyo-Ita’s international passports was not enough, as there was no evidence of which particular country and dates of travel were brought before the court to determine that she did not actually embark on the journeys.

The judge said it was not the duty of the 1st defendant to furnish the court with the evidence.

The judge said the offences in counts 5, 6, 7 and 13 are contrary to Section 15(2)(d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 (as amended).

Mr Omotosho also described the EFCC’s evidence in other counts as watery.

The judge, therefore, found that, from the evidence of the prosecution witnesses, all the alleged contracts leading to some of the counts were duly awarded and executed.

Earlier, the judge ruled on the objections of Ms Oyo-Ita, Messrs Umar and Effiok on the admissibility of their confessional statements which they argued were not obtained in compliance with Sections 15 and 17 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015.

The judge agreed with the defence that the objections raised by the first, fourth and seventh defendants concerned a mandatory statutory provision that had received the Supreme Court’s judicial imprimatur.

He said that where a confessional statement is to be made, there must be a video recording of the statement being taken in the absence of the defendants’ lawyer.

Ms Oyo-Ita, Messrs Umar and Effiok had alleged that their confessional statements were not made voluntarily.

The defendants, through their lawyers, argued that, while the statements were being obtained, neither the defence lawyers nor the prosecution were present, and that no video recordings of the statement-taking sessions were tendered.

Mr Omotosho then ordered a trial-within-trial to ascertain the voluntariness of their claims and reserved the ruling until today.

Ms Oyo-Ita was sacked by then-President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime on September 18, 2019, following allegations of corruption, and replaced by Folashade Yemi-Esan, who was the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Petroleum Resources at the time.

(NAN)