A prosecution witness, Olaleye Isma’il, on Monday told a Borno State High Court in Maiduguri that Aisha Wakil, alias Mama Boko Haram, connived with two others to divert N111.7m contract funds.
Mama Boko Haram, who is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Complete Care and Aid Foundation, is facing trial before Justice Aisha Kumaliya on amended five counts of fraud.
Joined as co-defendants in the charges are the foundation’s Programme Manager and Country Director, Dahiru Saidu, and Prince Lawal Shoyode, respectively.
Isma’il, an investigator with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, while being led in evidence by Benjamin Manji, told the court that as part of investigations into the alleged fraud, a forensic examination was conducted on the Samsung phones of the defendants.
He said, “On the three contracts investigated as alleged by Nyeuro International Limited, the first one bordered on a purported contract to pay the sum of N45m 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 N66m, which was supplied to Complete Care and Aid Foundation’s store, to which the defendants acknowledged.”
The investigation, he said, further revealed that the amounts paid by contractors in the account of Mukhtar’s account domiciled in the 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 Shoyode 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.
The prosecution, thereafter, closed its case against the defendants.
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