The trial of alleged electricity theft filed by the Federal Government against an Abuja property developer was stalled on Tuesday at the Federal High Court, Abuja, due to some discrepancies in the prosecution witness statement.
At the resumed trial, the prosecutor, Mr. Alibaba Mamman, called his witness, Mr. John Suleiman, who adopted his witness statement and identified some exhibits said to be the number of metres that were allegedly tampered with.
The defense counsel, Mr. Victor Giwa, raised objections to the tendering of the exhibits on the grounds that the prosecutor had not attached such documents to the witness statement of Suleiman that he made available to him.
The trial judge, Justice Binta Nyako, agreed that if such documents were not attached to Suleiman’s witness statement, he was not the right person to tender the documents in court.
In view of the following, the prosecutor prayed the court for an adjournment to enable him to put his house in order.
Earlier, a prosecution witness, Mr. Gabriel Ojo, who identified himself as a former staff member of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), told the court that he had received a complaint from a whistleblower on the alleged theft of electricity from one of the defendant’s properties.
Ojo said that he constituted a team that investigated the complaint, after which the report was forwarded to the management of the AEDC.
“I believe that the management passed the report to the revenue protection unit, but I do not know what happened thereafter,” Ojo said.
He also told the court that he could not remember the names of the security guards at the defendant’s property that his team interacted with in the course of their investigations.
The case has been adjourned until July 3 for the continuation of the trial. (NAN)
