Court fixes date to hear audio evidence of Shehu Sani allegedly extorting $25,000

A Federal High Court, Abuja presided over by Justice I.E. Ekwo, on Wednesday fixed December 4, 2020, to review the audio evidence, which allegedly captured Senator Shehu Sani’s voice extorting $25,000 from Kaduna-based business man, Alhaji Sani Dauda of ASD Motors.

Sani, who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the 8th Senate, was said to have demanded the money on the claim that he would use it to bribe the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Muhammad Tanko and the now suspended chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, in an event Dauda’s estranged son-in-law, one Abubakar Musa petitions the anti-graft agency against him.

A petition from Dauda to the EFCC after Sani had allegedly extorted the sum from him led to the commission’s investigation of the matter and Sani’s eventual prosecution on a two-count criminal charge, bordering on name-dropping, influence-peddling and obtaining by false pretence to the tune of $25,000.00.

When the matter resumed on Wednesday, Prosecuting Witness 10, (PW10), Bako Aliyu an EFCC detective, and investigating officer in the case informed the court that he confirmed from the bank that such transaction as claimed by the petitioner happened.

READ ALSO: EFCC’s inability to retrieve $25,000 exhibit from CBN stalls Shehu Sani’s trial

“We invited the two bureau de change operators and they confirmed to us that the complainant actually changed money into dollars from them. We also directed the complainant to record any conversation between him and the defendant which he did.

“We then collected two mobile phones from the complainant (an iPhone and a Samsung) and also a Samsung phone from the defendant which we sent to our Forensic Department for further analysis. The result of the analysis showed lots of conversation between the two of them in Hausa and we translated them to English and burnt it on compact disk,” Aliyu said.

The witness also informed the court that the CJN has exonerated himself from Sani’s alleged bribery claim by publishing a disclaimer on two national dailies: Daily Trust and The Punch, and that an engagement the Commission’s officers had with the CJN over the matter further proved that he had nothing to do with the extortion.

It could be recalled that the EFCC on Tuesday, October 10, 2020, presented Prosecuting Witness 9, (PW9), Sharif Zailani Shanono, a bureau de change operator who revealed that Dauda on November 29, 2019, informed him that he needed USD$10,000 (Ten Thousand US Dollars), which he delivered to him through his aid, one Lawal. And that Dauda on December 10, 2019 transferred a Naira equivalent of the sum, being N3.9 million to his bank account.

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