Gbenro Adesina
The trial of a former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido and his Niger State counterpart, Muazu Babangida Aliyu over the allegations of N1.35billion fraud and diversion N1.2billion Ecological Fund respectively continued today.
While Lamido is being tried before Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, along with his two sons, Aminu and Mustapha, Aminu Wada Abubakar, Bamaina Holdings Ltd and Speeds International Ltd, Aliyu is being tried before Justice Mikail Aliyu of the Niger state High Court Tanko along with Beji and Umar Nasko.
In the case of Lamido, the prosecuting antigraft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) presented 16th witness, a Certified Ethical Hacker, and forensics analyst of the Commission, Mercy Titus, while it presented 6th prosecution witness, PW6.
In the case of Lamido, Titus told the court that, as a professional digital forensics examiner, her schedule is to analyze contents of various digital devices such as flash drives, hard drives, mobile phones, tablets, and all sorts of storage devices using a software or other tools in order to recover information contained in those devices, and ensure the integrity of such devices are not compromised.
The witness told the court that between June and July 2015, a team of investigators from the Economic Governance Section of the Commission came to the Forensics Department.
She said the team, led by Detective Michael Wetkas brought a journal and asked if forensically, they could ascertain the actual date and the computer the journal was created from, and if the files created can be printed out.
“I said, yes, if we have access to the system, particularly the hard drive where the information is stored,” she stated.
She said the investigators returned to Dantata and Sawoe at Kargi and with the help of the Chief Accountant of the company, located the system from where the journal originated and, using a software, forensic imager light version 3.1, copied details of the information in the hard drive which they brought to the Laboratory for analysis.
She said she narrowed her search to ascertaining the originality of the journal from the system the documents came from.
The witness told the court that she discovered it came from the same system.
She said the journal given to her showed it was created between 2010-2013 and 2014-2015 and each journal contained a different worksheet. The first worksheet was named; 66012 and was saved on March 3, 2015 at about 9:18am.
The prosecuting counsel Chile Okoroma gave her the report marked Exhibit 20 to verify and she confirmed them as genuine.
She further told the court that among the workbooks she discovered on the system for 2010 entry, contained the journal entry and was named; SPEED, WADA and MAINA.XLXS.
While cross-examining her, Joe Agi SAN asked the witness whether the software captures deleted files. She answered in the affirmative but adds that she only did her checks and analysis based on the request she received from the investigators.
Justice Ojukwu thereafter adjourned the matter till January 24 and 25, 2022 for continuation of cross-examination and trial.
As regards the case of Aliyu, The witness, Mohammed Abdurahman, a branch manager with Unity Bank, Bosso Road, Niger State while being led in evidence by the prosecuting counsel, H.M. Muhammed, said he was in court to present some documents in the possession of his bank, including original and photocopies of Niger State Government House Account.
He said, “I want to give the court the photocopies and take back the original to our archive”, he said.
Counsels to the defendants did not object to the admissibility of the documents, which were marked as Exhibit k1 to K61.
The witness further told the court that the account statement was generated from their system using a HP Computer and a HP Printer.
The prosecuting counsel tendered the certificate of compliance, and certificate of identification which were both admitted and marked as Exhibit J1 and L1 to L61 respectively.
The prosecution witness was cross-examined by counsel to second defendant while the judge adjourned the matter to November 5, 2021 for continuation of cross-examination.
Earlier on Wednesday November 3, 2021 the court admitted other documents tendered in evidence by the fifth prosecution witness.
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