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I Received $2 Million from Olisa Metuh, Witness Tells Court as Trial Begins

A witness brought in by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) today, January 25 said she received $2 million from the national publicity secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olisa Metuh, Naij reports.

This is coming as Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court in Abuja directed the EFCC on Monday to open its case in the N400m money laundering charges against the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olisa Metuh.

The judge overruled the objection of the defence to the commencement of the trial before directing the EFCC to call its first witness on Monday.

The witness, Nneka Ararume, tagged PW1 is a former wealth manager with Assets Resource Management (ARM). She said she received the sum of $2 million in December 2014 on behalf of Metuh’s company.

“In December 2014, I received the sum of $2 million in $100 bills for future investments in favour of Dextra Investments,” Ararume said.

She continued: “We only have access to the funds when the client transfers money to us or when the client asks us to transfer money to them, we have all client’s account details on file.”

When examined, Ararume also said does not know precisely how long it took Metuh to accumulate the said sum. She added that Metuh was already running the portfolio as a client before she joined ARM in April, 2013.

Meanwhile, counsel to Metuh, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN) argued that the trial could not commence as he was only served with an additional proof of evidence containing the witness statement of an EFCC investigator this morning.

Ikpeazu added that it was agreed that trial would commence today on the assumption that Metuh would have fulfilled ‎ the bail conditions.

The trial judge is still entertaining submissions on the issues.

The judge had ruled as part of bail conditions that the sureties must produce the certificates of occupancy of the property which must be verified by the Chief Registrar of the court and confirmed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The judge, who also ordered that Metuh must deposit his traveling documents with the court pending the period of his trial, also ordered the EFCC to verify the residences of the sureties which must be in Abuja.

The EFCC alleged in the charges that Metuh, who was arraigned along a firm, Destra Investments Ltd, received N400m, part of the money meant for the procurement of arms, from the Office of the National Security Adviser in November 2014.

 

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Copyright 2015 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.

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