A Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the remand of Abdulrasheed Maina at Kuje Correctional Centre pending the conclusion of his trial.
Justice Okon Abang made the order at the resumed trial on Friday.
At the commencement of the matter on Friday, Maina’s counsel, Adaji Abel formally withdrew his appearance, prompting his new counsel to ask for a short adjournment to enable him to study the matter.
The judge granted the application and adjourned the matter till December 8 for continuation of trial.
Maina’s trial had commenced in absentia after he jumped bail and fled to Niger Republic. He was extradited to Nigeria on Thursday and brought to court on Friday for the continuation of his trial.
Meanwhile Channels Television reports that a prosecution witness, Rouqayyah Ibrahim told an Abuja high court on Thursday that Maina bought a property worth $2 million in the Jabi area of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The witness, who is a detective of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) also stated that the defendant acquired properties in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, as well as the United States.
According to the witness, a prosecution witness, Adamu Modibbo, who testified to the EFCC regarding the said Jabi property, died of COVID-19 after his statement to the commission.
The witness added that about 32 documents, hard discs, and flash drives relating to properties linked to Maina and his family and details of some of his investments in Dubai and in the US were recovered from him.
She said: “Particularly in Dubai, investigation revealed that his company, Northrich Company owned over 50 cars that were used for transportation business and he owns a villa in a High Ground area in Dubai.
“His wife Laila Abdulrasheed also owns cleaning services, called Spotless and Flawless. We also recovered pay slips during our investigation,” Ibrahim told the court.
Also, the witness disclosed that investigation proved that another of Maina’s company, Kangolo Dynamic, does no business but that the defendant created a bank account for it in which his name did not appear anywhere on the account documentation even though he was in control of all the deposits in it.
According to the witness, investigation showed that Colster Logistics, belonging to Maina, had a Fidelity Bank dollar account which had an inflow of over $400,000 from cash deposits as at the time the company was investigated, adding that over N500 million was discovered in the account of Kangolo Dynamic, within the years Maina was PRTT chairman.
The witness added that in the course of the investigation, letters were written to the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), to verify the authenticity of the driver’s license used in opening some of the accounts; Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) for Maina’s declared assets; Federal Civil Service Commission, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation (HOSF), and Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), to confirm if Maina was still a civil servant and for his payslips.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was also written to for the tax returns of Maina’s companies while the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) was written to for the registration documentation of the companies and their annual returns.
The documents and written responses of the government agencies were tendered as exhibits, after which, the prosecution counsel, M.S. Abubakar, urged the court to foreclose the right of the defendants to respond to the admissibility of the documents.
Justice Abang granted the prosecution’s prayer, pointing out that the defendants had the opportunity to be in court to oppose the admissibility of the document in evidence, but failed to appear and also failed to engage a counsel.