The Special Offences Division of the Lagos High Court, Ikeja, presided over by Justice Rahman Oshodi, has admitted additional documents tendered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as evidence in the ongoing trial of former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele.
Emefiele and his co-defendant, Henry Omoile, face 19 counts of abuse of office, receiving gratification, accepting gifts through agents, corruption, and fraudulent property transactions totaling $4.5 billion and ₦2.8 billion.
During Thursday’s proceedings, Justice Oshodi overruled objections raised by the defence counsels — Olalekan Ojo (SAN) and Rasheed Gbadamosi (SAN) — and admitted bundles of documents extracted from the mobile phone of John Adetola, a former executive assistant to Emefiele.
EFCC’s eighth witness, Alvan Gurumnaan, detailed how investigators uncovered alleged payments totaling $600,000 made to Emefiele personally and through proxies. Gurumnaan testified that a CBN contractor, Victor Onyedua, confessed to paying kickbacks to CBN management before receiving payments for contracts.
The court also admitted:
-
Adetola’s MI 10T mobile phone (Exhibit I),
-
WhatsApp chats allegedly showing money transfers of $400,000 and $200,000 delivered to Emefiele through intermediaries,
-
And several letters and documents exchanged between contractors and the EFCC.
The defence, however, objected to the admissibility of certain statements made by Omoile during EFCC interrogation, arguing they were obtained under duress and without legal representation.
Justice Oshodi consequently ordered a trial-within-trial to determine the voluntariness of those statements and fixed November 21, 2025, for report on forensic inspection, while the mini-trial continues on December 2 and 3, 2025.
