A prosecution witness of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Olaleye Isma’il, on Monday told a Borno State High Court, in Maiduguri, that Aisha Alkali Wakil (aka Mama Boko Haram) connived with two others to divert N111,650,000 contract funds.
The court in Maiduguri is presided over by Justice Aisha Kumaliya.
Wakil, the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Complete Care and Aid Foundation alongside Programme Manager and Country Director, Dahiru Saidu Daura, and Prince Lawal Shoyade are standing trial for a five-count amended charge.
Isma’il, an investigator with the EFCC, while being led in evidence by Benjamin Manji, told the court that a forensic examination was carried out to analyse the Samsung devices of the three defendants.
He said: “They consented and voluntarily submitted their devices for forensic examination in a written statement.
“On the 30th of January, 2020 we received a response from the Forensic Section and the following were obtained: a forensic report, compact disk, and all the five Samsung mobile devices belonging to the three defendants.
“We have discovered folders containing appendixes which contains extracts on Whatsapp data extracted from the phones of the defendants.
“On the three contracts investigated as alleged by Nyeuro International Limited, the first one bordered on a purported contract to pay the sum of N45million into one Saidu Mukhtar Hospital Equipment account as directed by the defendant.
“The second purported contract was that, Nyeuro was directed to pay into Tahiru Saidu Daura’s account the sum of N1.650m for the supply of a machine. Investigation revealed that, there was no such contract.
“Also, Nyeuro International Limited was directed to supply white beans worth N66million, which was supplied to Complete Care and Aid Foundation’s store, to which the defendants acknowledged.”
The witness further revealed that the amounts paid by contractors in the account of Mukhtar’s account domiciled in UBA, were used in paying other contractors that the Foundation was indebted to.
He told the court that in the course of interrogation, the second defendant, admitted in his statements that such a method of payment was termed “recycling”.
According to him, though Wakil and Shoyade had denied knowledge of the said contracts, the forensic analysis showed that they were actually communicating in this regard on Whatsapp, and they all agree on the “recycling”.
Earlier in the course of proceedings, Geoffrey Okomorah, a digital examiner and Head of Digital Forensics at the Department of Forensics and Crimes Laboratory Science, EFCC, testified as the sixth prosecution witness, PW6.
Giving his evidence-in-chief, he noted that the profile account of Wakil was used to communicate with all the defendants via Whatsapp.
He said: “On November 22, 2019 a letter of request for forensic examination of five Samsung digital devices were sent to the laboratory via letter of request from Counter Terrorism and General Investigation, CTGI Unit, Maiduguri Zonal office.
“It’s a case of criminal conspiracy, breach of trust and obtaining money by false pretence reported to the EFCC against the defendants.
“The request was to extract Whatsapp chats among the defendants.
“The three Samsung Galaxy Phones and two Galaxy tabs belonging to the defendants were physically examined and documented on the case file.
“The SIMs were removed from the phones by using the universal Forensic Extraction Device into one terabyte Toshiba hard drive.”
The prosecution, thereafter, closed its case against the defendants.
