Court admits evidence against Bankole in N894m scam

June 12, 2012 by Ihuoma Chiedozie, Abuja

Moves by a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, to have a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to reject documents tendered as evidence against him in a trial over a N894m contract scam brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission failed on Monday.

The former Speaker is facing trial before the court over a 16 count.

The trial judge, Justice Donatus Okorowo, admitted the documents as evidence on the grounds that the validity of the certification of the materials was not contested by the prosecution and defence counsel in the matter.

Okorowo noted that the only contention concerns claims that some parts of the documents were missing.

The documents included minutes of meetings said to be held in the former Speaker’s conference room over the purchase of some office equipment.

They also included receipts for the purchase of Samsung LCDs, desktops, photocopiers and Mercedes cars by the House of Representatives while Bankole was still in power.

Bankole’s lawyer, Wale Akanni, SAN, had argued that the documents were incomplete, and not serially numbered.

He also insisted that the documents were irrelevant to the case against his client.

However, the prosecution counsel, Festus Keyamo, attributed the development to typographical error.

via Punch