Month: January 2026

The First Prosecution Witness, PW1, Mustapha Usman in the trial of a former member, House of Representatives, Aliyu Ibrahim Gebi on Monday, January 19, 2026 narrated before a Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja and presided over by Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie how the defendant gave him 14 dud cheques worth N125, 000.000 (One Hundred and Twenty Five Million Naira). The witness, while being led in evidence by prosecution counsel Slyvanus Tahir, SAN disclosed that he met the defendant through Hajiya Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed, a then House of Representative member. According to him, “In 2011, Gebi approached Honourable Aishatu for a friendly loan of N125 million and it was granted. I was there when the first defendant wrote an undertaking to repay in 60 days’ time without interest. At the expiry date of the 60 days, he did not fulfil his obligation, after which I met with the defendant, for the repayment of the loan. “Thereafter, he gave me some cheques, totalling N125, 500,000, (One Hundred and Twenty-five Million, Five Hundred Thousand. The N500, 000 (Five Hundred Thousand) on it was when I was following up on the repayment, he told me he was expecting some money from the United States of America and he asked me for N1million for his ticket and I gave him N500,000 to reduce the risk. Some of the cheques were from Craft Technology Ltd while some were directly from the first defendant’s personal account. The cheques were issued by the first defendant in favor of my company Musty Petroleum Limited. They were 14 in total.” Testifying further, he said, “I presented the cheques to UBA and they were returned unpaid. I was told withdrawal attention was required. Because the cheques were UBA cheques where I also have an account, I got to know that Craft Technologies Ltd and the first defendant personal accounts were not funded. I went back to him and he kept on promising that he will pay.  When the payment was not forthcoming, I wrote a petition to EFCC and at that point, he started paying. “He paid the first N20 million and another N34 million. He was paying in bits, up till when he started the court case. The last payment was about two weeks ago. I got a credit of N12 million. So when we came to court the last time, which was December 18, 2025. He told me he had finished paying and I said to him that that was not correct. He looked at his records and he paid the outstanding the same day after leaving the court. The outstanding was N10, 500,000 (Ten Million, Five Hundred Thousand.” The letter of undertaking, dated December 19, 2011 was tendered and admitted in evidence, marked Exhibit PW1a. The 14 cheques in favor of Musty Technology Ltd, dated January 12, 2012 were tendered and admitted in evidence, marked PW1b to PW1xiv. The petition to the EFCC, dated September 13, 2012, was equally admitted and marked PW16l. Justice Onwuegbuzie adjourned the matter till January 21, 2026 for continuation of trial. Gebi was first arraigned on January 29, 2013 before Justice Abba Mohammed of the Federal Capital Territory High Court on a13-count charge. With Justice Mohammed’s elevation to the Court of Appeal, the case was reassigned to Justice Onwuegbuzie.