Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia made efforts to evade investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, a witness disclosed at an Ikeja High Court on Friday.
The witness, Mr. Lawal Abdullahi, however said the efforts proved abortive as the EFCC proved smatter in their actions.
According to him, Ofili-Ajumogobia claimed to be on admission in an hospital on the day she was expected to be at the EFCC office on invitation.
Abdullahi narrated: “On October 19, 2016 at 7.16pm, I put a call to her that we have been expecting her since the previous day, she said she was aware but she was sick and was on admission at Goldcross Hospital located at 17b, Bourdillion Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.
“She asked if I will be coming there and I said no but after about 30minutes, I and about three other operatives drove down to the hospital.
“I personally met the receptionist and I informed her that I was there to visit Hon. Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia and her reply was that ‘we are expecting her’.
“I asked her if she means that the judge is not at the hospital, she told me that she just received a call from her boss that the Ofili-Ajumogobia will soon be at the hospital.
“We enquired and got the list of all the patients that were on admission that day as well as the previous night and her name was missing on the list.
“I put a call to her and I asked her which hospital she was referring to and she said Goldcross Hospital on Bourdillon Road I then told her ‘Ma, we are there and you are not here’, she said ‘oh you are there?’ and she hung up the phone.”
The EFCC investigator in his testimony alleged that the judge was smuggled into the hospital at 11.30pmthrough a back entrance by staff in connivance with the medical director of the hospital one Dr. Solanke.
“She claimed that she had been in the hospital all along and because of that false claim, we placed security guards in her room until she was discharged.
“She eventually honoured our invitation the next day which was October 20, she came around 4pm to our office.
“When she came we confronted her with what we had already based on the investigation we had conducted.
“We discovered that there were a lot of inflows or cash deposits from various individuals, state governments, organisations amongst others which looked suspicious.
“She volunteered a statement on October 21, 2016 and she gave several statements on other days which were made with her lawyer present,” Abdullahi said.
During the trial too, the Chief Accountant of the Federal High Court, Awoyemi Kazeem, revealed that Ofili-Ajumogobia earned a cumulative N120 million between 2004 and 2017.
Kazeem is the eleventh prosecution witness of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to testify against Ofili-Ajumogobia, facing trial for corruption, money laundering and obstruction of justice.
Kazeem, in his evidence revealed that Ofili-Ajumogobia, initially received salary of N193,000 in 2004, on appointment as a judge which was increased to approximately N528,621 in 2008.
While being led in evidence by Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo the prosecution counsel for the EFCC, Kazeem said “I know Hon. Ofili-Ajumogobia very well, she’s a honourable judge of the Federal High Court and she has been in the service of the court since 2004.
“In the course of her job we have been paying her statutory allowances as sent to us by the National Judicial Commission (NJC) as well as other allowances as a judge of the Federal High Court.
“We forwarded to the EFCC, documents containing details of her salary and allowance from the year 2004 to June 2017.
“From year 2004 to 2017, she earned a salary of N48.6milliom and allowances of 74.8million.
“I will like to state that records of her allowances from 2004 to 2008 as well as her annual salary for 2008 could not be found due to the movement of the court from Lagos to Abuja in 2017.
“The total records of salary we have here is N123million and this excludes the salaries that we could not present in court at the moment,” he said.
Kazeem who looked through the salary records of the judge during his testimony noted that some deposits in the judge’s salary account were not from the Federal High Court.
“The deposit of N1.8million on June 15, 2004 from the records I have here are not from the Federal High Court.
“Another cash deposit of N1.8million on August 11, 2005 is not from the Federal High Court, from the records available to me, a N1million Zenith Bank Cheque deposit on December 14, 2008 is not from the Federal High Court,” he said.
The accountant told the court that judges were allowed annual foreign trips for either medical checkup or training and were given $6,900 annually either for airfare or estacode.
“The $6,900 was paid in cash to the judges, I however did not check if my Lady took advantage of it because it is not reflected in our records,” Kazeem said.
While being cross-examined by Mr. Robert Clarke, counsel to Ofili-Ajumogobia, Kazeem admitted that his knowledge of the judge was restricted to her financial records and he was not aware of the purpose of the deposits which were not from the Federal High Court.
Clarke also noted that before becoming a judge, Ofili-Ajumogobia was a lawyer with a thriving practice and had a ‘pedigree’ by virtue of her father being a retired High Court judge.
Ofili-Ajumogobia, is standing trial alongside Mr. Godwin Obla, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and former prosecutor of the EFCC.
The two have been jointly charged with two counts of perverting the course of justice.
Obla is facing an additional two counts of offering gratification in the sum of N5 million to Ofili-Ajumogobia, a public official while serving as a judge.
Ofili-Ajumogobia faces a 26-count charge bordering on unlawful enrichment, taking property by a public officer, corruption, forgery and giving false information to an official of the EFCC.
Both denied all the charges.
Justice Hakeem Oshodi adjourned the case to October 27 for continuation of trial.
(NAN)
