ICPC turns Farouk Lawan’s co-accused to prosecution witness

Ade Adesomoju, Abuja
The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission at a Federal Capital Territory High Court in Lugbe, on Tuesday opened its case of alleged bribery against ‎a former Chairman, House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy, Mr. Farouk Lawan,‎ by calling its first prosecution witness, Boniface Emenalo.

Emenalo was jointly charged along with Lawan as the second accused person until an amendment to the charges by the ICPC saw his name removed as a defendant.
Lawan is now the sole accused person in the case.
Lawan and Emenalo were initially arraigned on six counts of corruptly accepting sums of money up to $620,000 from business mogul and Chairman of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited, Mr. Femi Otedola, in the course of performing the committee’s duty in 2012.
Both men were accused of collecting the money in April 2012 from Otedola in order to remove Otedola’s companies’ names from the list of firms indicted by the committee for allegedly  abusing the fuel subsidy regime.

But the amended charges now comprising three counts instead of the previous seven now indicate that Lawan corruptly asked for $3m from Otedola and did corruptly collected $500,000 from the business man.
At the resumed hearing of the case on Tuesday, Emenalo appeared in court as a prosecution witness summoned through a subpoena served on the Clerk of the House of Representatives.