Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Maitama, Abuja, on Wednesday, March 18, 2026, affirmed the voluntariness of the extra-judicial statements of Ali Bello and Dauda Sulaiman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting Ali Bello, a nephew of former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello, alongside Dauda Sulaiman, on a 16-count amended charge bordering on alleged misappropriation and money laundering to the tune of \u20a610,270,556,800.00.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trial-within-trial was conducted to ascertain the voluntariness or otherwise of the extra-judicial statements made by the defendants during investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The defendants had objected to the prosecution\u2019s move to tender the eight statements, claiming they were made under duress and threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his ruling on Wednesday, Justice Omotosho held that it was evident the defendants had their counsel present when the statements were taken. He noted that the investigative team allowed the defendants\u2019 counsel to be present and to endorse the statements as confessional and voluntary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is clear that the defendants had their counsel present during the taking of both statements, and the investigative team allowed the counsel to the defendants to be present and even endorsed some of the statements as confessional and voluntarily obtained in his presence. That is therefore in compliance with the provisions of Sections 15(4) and 17(2) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cConsequently, the statements of the defendants are admissible in evidence, as they were made voluntarily,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judge subsequently admitted the statements of the first defendant, earlier marked as Exhibits TWA\u2013TWA5 during the trial-within-trial, as Exhibits R2\u2013R5 in the main trial. Similarly, the statements of the second defendant, marked as Exhibits TWB and TWB1, were admitted as Exhibits S and SW1 in the main trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice Omotosho thereafter adjourned the matter until April 21 and 24, 2026, for the prosecution to close its case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Maitama, Abuja, on Wednesday, March 18, 2026, affirmed the voluntariness of the extra-judicial statements of Ali Bello and Dauda Sulaiman. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting Ali Bello, a nephew of former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello, alongside Dauda Sulaiman, on a 16-count<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":96564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[164,169],"tags":[116,252],"class_list":{"0":"post-96563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-efcc","8":"category-judiciary","9":"tag-efcc","10":"tag-justice-james-omotosho"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96565,"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96563\/revisions\/96565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/96564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kokocurrent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}