Alleged $25,000 Extortion: Ex-Senator, Sani Shehu Trial Gets Messy As Court Fix Dec 4 To Hear Audio Evidence

A Federal High Court, sitting at the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja has fixed December 4, 2020 to review the audio evidence, which captured Senator Shehu Sani’s voice, allegedly extorting USD$25,000 (Twenty-five Thousand United Stated Dollars) from Kaduna-based business man, Alhaji Sani Dauda of ASD Motors.

Sani was the senator, representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the 8th Senate.

He was alleged to have demanded the sum, based on his claim that he would use it to bribe the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Muhammad Tanko and Ibrahim Magu in an event Dauda’s estranged son-in-law, one Abubakar Musa petitions the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, against him.

EFCC Spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, in a statement said that the Commission’s investigation of the matter and Sani’s eventual prosecution, followed a petition from Dauda after Sani had allegedly extorted the sum from him.

BIGPEN reports Sani is being prosecuted on a two-count criminal charge, bordering on name-dropping, influence-peddling and obtaining by false pretence to the tune of USD$25,000.00 (Twenty-Five Thousand United States Dollars).

At the resumed trial on Wednesday, October 21, 2020 before Justice I.E. Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, Prosecuting Witness 10, (PW10), Bako Aliyu an EFCC detective, and investigating officer in the case informed the court that he confirmed from the bank that such transaction as claimed by the petitioner happened.

“We invited the two bureau de change operators and they confirmed to us that the complainant actually changed money into dollars from them. We also directed the complainant to record any conversation between him and the defendant which he did.

“We then collected two mobile phones from the complainant (an iPhone and a Samsung) and also a Samsung phone from the defendant which we sent to our Forensic Department for further analysis. The result of the analysis showed lots of conversation between the two of them in Hausa and we translated them to English and burnt it on compact disk,” Aliyu said.

The witness also informed the court that the CJN has exonerated himself from Sani’s alleged bribery claim by publishing a disclaimer on two national dailies: Daily Trust and The Punch, and that an engagement the Commission’s officers had with the CJN over the matter further proved that he had nothing to do with the extortion.

It could be recalled that the EFCC on Tuesday, October 10, 2020, presented Prosecuting Witness 9, (PW9), Sharif Zailani Shanono, a bureau de change operator who revealed that Dauda on November 29, 2019, informed him that he needed USD$10,000 (Ten Thousand US Dollars), which he delivered to him through his aide, one Lawal. And that Dauda on December 10, 2019 transferred a Naira equivalent of the sum, being N3,900,000 (Three Million, Nine Hundred Thousand Naira) to his bank account.