AYO ESAN
THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has appealed the February 18, 2010 discharge and acquittal of former Minister of Science and Technology, Abdu Bulama, and four others, by Justice Isah H. Dashen of the Federal High Court, Damaturu, Yobe State.
Bulama, who was the coordinator of the former President Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation for the 2015 general election, was prosecuted alongside Mohammed Kadai, a former commissioner for Integrated and Rural Development in Yobe State and the Deputy Coordinator of the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation, Yobe State; Abba Gana Tata; Muhammad Mamu and Hassan Ibn Jaks.
They were prosecuted on a seven-count charge bordering on money laundering, to the tune of N450million.
Investigations by the Commission alleged that Bulama and his co-defendants partook in the disbursement of huge sums of money in the build-up to the 2015 general election, without going through a financial institution.
The Commission in its notice of appeal, filed by its counsel, Mukhtar Ali Ahmed, argued that the trial judge erred in law in the judgement.
Ahmed in the appeal motion, noted, “The ruling of the lower court delivered by Justice Dashen is a miscarriage of justice, because of the failure of the trial court to properly evaluate the evidences brought before the court against the defendants.”
He also urged the Appeal Court justices to overrule the lower court.
“My lords, we submit that the Commission has placed sufficient evidence and therefore urge the justices of the Appeal Court to overrule the lower court by dismissing the ‘no case submission’ as groundless, baseless and a deliberate attempt to delay the trial, ” Ahmed stated.
-ThePoint
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