Olalekan Ojo, Counsel to the embattled ex-governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of ambush by trial.
Emefiele and his co-defendant, Henry Omoile, are facing trial on a 26-count charge brought before a Lagos high court, presided over by Justice Rahman Oshodi.
At the sitting on Friday, Ojo told the court that he had just received more documents (additional proof of evidence) from EFCC filed on Thursday, while asking the court to adjourn sitting to enable him study them.
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He accused that: “The prosecution keeps dumping documents on us at every sitting. This is a trial by ambush.”
Meanwhile, Ojo had expected to continue cross examining one of the two witnesses presented by the EFCC, John Ikechukwu Ayoh, and on his part, Adeyinka Kotoye, lawyer to Omoile, also accused EFCC of trying to ambush the defence team.
However, counsel to EFCC, Oyedepo explained that the additional proof of evidence was part of the documents retrieved from the phone of John Adetona, a former aide to Emefiele, who was listed as a witness and were served in preparation for the testimony to be given by Adetona before the court.
Oyedepo said: “The witness (Adetona) whose device the documents were printed from has not given evidence before the court…
“In preparation for his testimony which is not coming up today or May 9, the prosecution rather than waiting for the defence to formally place a demand for the hard copies, the prosecution team printed the documents out. How does that amount to prosecutorial unfairness?”
He therefore asked the judge to order the defence team to complete the cross-examination of the second prosecution witness, as the new documents do not affect the continuation of cross-examination of the witness.