Why Olisa Metuh chewed his confessional statement - EFCC

A High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja on Friday heard from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC that the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP chewed his confessional statement when he realized that it directly implicated former President Goodluck Jonathan in the unlawful diversion of arms procurement funds.

The EFCC said this at the resumed hearing of the three-count charge against Metuh bordering on destruction of evidence, mischief and obstruction of justice, contrary to sections 166 and 326 of the Penal Code Act, and section 38(2) of the EFCC Act, 2004.

Led in evidence by prosecution counsel, Mr Sylvanus Tahir, the lead investigator in the case, Mr
Junaid Sa'id told Justice Ishaq Bello that he was on the Special Task Force Team that received and investigated the petition which led to the arrest of former National Security Adviser, NSA, Col. Sambo Dasuki.

He also said that a petition  filed from the office of the NSA in January alleged that Metuh, through his company, Destra Investment Limited, received N400million from Dasuki.

The money was said to have been electronically transferred from an account the Office of the NSA, ONSA operated with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, into Destra Investment Ltd's account no. 0040437573 with Diamond Bank Plc.

The witness further told the court that upon investigation, his team discovered that the transfer was done without any contract approval.

He said that on realizating that there was no basis for the payment, his team, on January 5, paid an unscheduled visit to Metuh at his Prince and Princess Estate, Abuja, residence and invited him for questioning.

He said that Metuh was interrogated by six EFCC operatives, namely, Ibrahim Musa, Michael Wetkas, Bello Umar, David Nkpe, Bello Adama and Eucharia Ibrahim, after which he volunteered a statement to the commission.

Sa'id explained that Metuh had in his statement, disclosed that the N400 million he received from the NSA had the approval of ex-President Jonathan.

His words:
“My Lord, when he concluded writing his statement which was on four sheets of the EFCC statement form, I collected the statement and read over it, I then handed the statement over to my superiors Musa and Wetkas.

“When I was handing over the statement, the defendant said he was surprised that he had written that much and that he felt he had given too much information.

“Because of the comment, I was worried so I gave him the statement sheets, one after the other for endorsement. After endorsing the first and second sheets, to my surprise, the defendant tore the third sheet.

“My lord, he suddenly tore the statement sheet into pieces, in great shock and surprise I stood up, I asked him why he did what he did?

“He replied that he did that because he was no longer willing to give the information on that statement sheet. I then requested the pieces of the statement, he declined and attempted to put them in his pocket, I then cautioned him and told him to respect himself but he insisted that he was going to dispose the torn sheet.

“I persuaded him to handover the torn sheet and brought one plain paper before him, he poured the pieces on the plain sheet, my other colleagues were there looking at us in surprise as well.

“He furthered tore them into pieces, saying only in the movies would this be recovered. At that point I poured the pieces in the commission’s transparent polythene bag as exhibit and made entry of the incident into the EFCC’s incident duty station diary as well as EFCC’s pocket notebook.

“Later in the day he requested to make additional statement, which he made, wrote his name and signed but declined to make any other statement on the torn paper.”

The witness maintained that the third sheet which was destroyed by accused revealed that he used the money from Dasuki to fund the campaign activities of the PDP in order to ensure the re-election of ex-President Jonathan in the 2015 presidential election.

Metuh was also said to have admitted  spending part of the money on his personal needs.

Meanwhile, the court, on Friday , admitted  EFCC’s incident duty station diary, EFCC’s pocket notebook and the pieces of Metuh’s torn statement in evidence.