Prosecution witness, Ibrahim Mahir yesterday testified that retired Col. Sambo Dasuki authorised the payment of 40 million dollars in favour of One Plus Holdings.
Mahir gave the testimony in the case of Azibaola Roberts, cousin to former President Goodluck Jonathan, at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
He said that Dasuki, a former National Security Adviser, NSA, instructed him to prepare a payment mandate of 40 million dollars in favour of the company.
Roberts and his wife, Stella, were arraigned on June 8 on a seven-count charge of money laundering.
Mahir, who was the first prosecution witness, told the court that Dasuki had endorsed a memo to him with details of the company’s account.
“On August 20, 2014, the NSA endorsed a memo to me which originated from the director of Finance and Administration in the Office of the NSA, giving bank details of a company called One Plus.
“The memo also gave details of the purpose for which the company was to be paid.
“The NSA instructed me to prepare payment and my understanding of that, was that I should prepare the payment mandate for One Plus for his signature.
“After I got the memo, I prepared the payment mandate, sent it to him, he signed and sent it back to me.
“The subsequent necessary action was for me to countersign, which I did and I sent it to the CBN for payment,” Mahir said.
Earlier, Roberts’ lead counsel, Mr. Chris Uche (SAN) had applied for a short adjournment to enable him meet with his client to prepare his defence.
He said that when bail was granted, his team had difficulties in perfecting the bail conditions, adding that the conditions were only perfected last week.
He said they needed more time to prepare their defence because there were some documents that they needed to subpoena from the office of the NSA.
Uche …Read More
Source:: Nigerian Pilot
