Justice Ayokunle Faji of the Federal High Court in Lagos on Thursday adjourned till January 13 and 14, 2025 the trial of four bloggers charged with allegedly blackmailing Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) and its group chief executive officer Segun Agbaje.
Precious Eze, Olawale Rotimi, Rowland Olonishuwa, and Seun Odunlami are being prosecuted on a 10-count charge by the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) of the Nigeria Police Force.
They earlier pleaded not guilty to the charges and were denied bail because Eze was accused of being a serial offender.
However, Justice Faji ordered an accelerated trial of the four bloggers.
At the resumption of trial on Thursday, the defence counsel O. A Afolabi called Eze, the first defendant, to the witness box to give his testimony concerning the circumstances surrounding the recording of his statement at the police custody after his arrest.
He said he was arrested on September 21, 2024, at Gbagada and was taken to the SFU office in Ikoyi.
On whether the interrogation room captured in the video played for the court was the same room he was taken to immediately he got to the SFU office, the witness replied that he had seen the video and the room was different from the initial one he was taken.
Afolabi further asked about the circumstances surrounding the writing of the two statements shown in court.
Eze replied: “The statement I wrote in the first office I was taken to was the same one I was given to rewrite the same thing in another form.”
Objecting, the prosecution counsel Ajibola Aribisala urged the court to play the video recording of the statement to ascertain the authenticity of the witness’s claims that he copied his first statement in his second.
Aribisala told the court that the two statements, in contrast to what the witness said, were two different statements without same narration and meaning.
In continuation of his cross-examination, the prosecuting counsel urged the court to allow the witness to read out a few lines from the two statements to determine if it was copied or rewritten.
The defence counsel objected to the suggestion of reading out the content of the statements to the court by the prosecuting counsel.
Aribisala insisted that the statement is yet to be admitted before the court and as such cannot be read out.
After deliberations, the trial judge admitted the statement as evidence to be used in the trial within trial.
The prosecuting counsel, after comparing and contrasting the two statements, asked the witness about the similarities between the two statements to ascertain it as being copied or rewritten.
The witness replied: “I’m not a child and I’m learned to know that I’m not expected to write the statement verbatim.
“And as a writer, I can write on the same subject matter or topic with different approaches or words.”
Eze added that the initial part of the second statement he was seen writing in the video played in the court was dictated to him by investigating police officer Yakubu, who later gave him the first statement to copy into the second one he wrote.
Opposing, Aribisala told the court that the two statements were the original thoughts of the witness and not dictated as the witness alleged in his testimony.
Justice Faji thereafter adjourned the case until January 13 and 14, 2025 for further cross-examination of witnesses.
