N400m contract awarded Metuh not vetted --- Witness

(Nigeria) The Legal Adviser to the National Security Adviser, NSA, Mr Bali Ndam, on Tuesday testified that the N400 million contract awarded to Olisa Metuh’s company was not vetted.

Ndam said this while giving Evidence-in-Chief before Justice Abang Okon of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja.

Metuh and his company, Dextra Investment Limited, are standing trial for receiving payment from alleged fictitious contract from the Office of the National Security Adviser.

Ndam in his evidence, said he was not aware of any formal procedure that led to the award of the contract to the second defendant (Dextra Limited).

He said, “The company is rightly listed among companies that received payments without executing any contract for the NSA. Part of my duties is to provide legal advice, prepare agreement for contracts awarded and to vet such contracts before payment can be made.

“Unfortunately, I have not seen any formal correspondence that led to the award of any contracts to Dextra Limited before the payment was made to it,’’ Ndam said.

Ndam is the third witness presented to the court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on the ongoing matter.

The prosecuting counsel, Mr Silvanus Tahir,  had tendered some of the documents in relation to the payment schedule and investigation activities on the matter.

One of the correspondences was a letter from the EFCC to the Office of the NSA, demanding the list of companies that were paid monies without award of contract.

There was also a letter by the NSA forwarding the e-payment mandate. A letter requesting the full list of 78 companies suspected to have collected illegal contract payment was also tendered.

The fourth correspondence was a letter by the NSA forwarding the list of the 78 companies with an attachment of e-payment schedule from the Credit Controller of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. However, Mr Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, counsel to the defendants objected to the admissibility of the documents.

He argued that the Evidence Act frowned at receiving secondary materials as evidence in court. Ikpeazu submitted that the witness lacked the right to tender documents he did not make.

He also argued that only the EFCC or the officers who created and signed those documents were eligible to tender the documents.

Ikpeazu, therefore, urged the court not to admit the documents in evidence. Delivering his bench ruling, Okon held that the Evidence Act mandated the certification of documents that required prescribed payment before they could be admitted.

“What we should know is that these letters are just correspondences between agencies of the Federal Government and therefore, are not captured in the class of documents. In the light of this, the witness being a staff of the Federal Government is eligible to tender the documents in evidence.

“The four letters bearing some further attachments are hereby admitted as exhibits,’’ Okon ruled. Ndam, during his re-examination on how contracts were offered by the Office of the NSA, said due process was always followed, adding that the Legal Department vetted only two contracts in 2015. On the powers of the NSA, the witness said the head of the office had operated as Sole Administrator.

He also said that it was the prerogative of the former NSA, retired Col. Sambo Dasuki, to approve contracts, adding that all eligible contracts were duly documented.

Okon adjourned the matter till January 27 to entertain arguments on the bail variation application filed by counsel to Metuh.