A defence witness, Henry Omoile, on Friday told the Ikeja Special Offences Court in Lagos that operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) allegedly forced him to write a statement implicating the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.
Omoile, who is also the second defendant in the alleged $4.5 billion fraud case filed by the EFCC against him and Emefiele, testified before Justice Rahman Oshodi during a trial-within-trial to determine the voluntariness of a purported confessional statement he allegedly made while in EFCC custody.
While giving evidence, the witness told the court that he was shocked and traumatised when his lawyer, Nnamdi Offiah, discovered he was being compelled to write his statement in his lawyer’s absence at the EFCC office. Upon questioning the Omoile why he would write his statement in his lawyers’ absence, the investigating officers subsequently asked Nnamdi Offiah to leave the interrogation room.
“The act of asking my lawyer to leave was shocking to me. I was surprised, afraid and traumatised. I had to beg Mr Azeez to allow me some time to recover from the shock,” Omoile told the court.
He added that his lawyer had not made any offensive remarks but had only questioned why the statement was taken in his absence.
“He was only asking why I should write a statement without him being present. I protested when they asked him to leave and questioned why they wanted to interrogate me in the absence of my lawyer, but they said they had their own way of conducting interrogations,” he said.