The Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out criminal charges, bordering on electricity theft, filed against a property developer, Mr Cecil Osakwe.
Justice Binta Nyako struck out the charge following its withdrawal by the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.
The Judge discharged Osakwe, after the prosecutor, Mamman Alibaba, moved a motion for the withdrawal of the criminal charge.
“It is hereby ordered as follows: That as requested by the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, the charge be and it is accordingly struck out.
“That the Defendant is hereby discharged,” the judge declared.
The Federal Government had filed a criminal charge against Osakwe over allegation of electricity theft.
At the last adjourned date, hearing in the matter was stalled due to some discrepancies in the statement of one of witnesses called by the Federal Government.
The prosecutor, Mr Alibaba Mamman, of the Office of the AGF, had called his witness, Mr John Suleiman, who adopted his witness statement and identified some exhibits said to be the numbers of electricity meters that were allegedly tempered with.
However, the defence 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 made available to him.
Justice Binta Nyako agreed with the defence counsel, noting that if such documents were not attached to Suleiman’s witness statement, he was not the right person to tender the documents in court.
Following the development, the prosecutor prayed the court for an adjournment to enable him rectify the issue.
Earlier in the trial, a prosecution witness, Mr Gabriel Ojo, who identified himself as a former staff 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 at one of the properties owned by the defendant.
Ojo said that he constituted a team who 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 defendants’ property that his team interacted with in the course of their investigations.
Court strikes out electricity theft charge filed by Nigerian Govt against property developer
