By Onyewuchi Ojinnaka
A prosecution witness Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) James Buzugbe who was with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has told a Lagos High Court sitting at Igbosere how his investigation team discovered that one Mr. Mike Adenuga, a property developer and owner of Covenant Property Company Limited fraudulently converted hectares of land measuring 22.867 belonging to two parties to his personal property.
In a resumed trial of Mike Adenuga who has been standing trial before Justice Sedoten Ogunsanya since 2014 over the case bordering on stealing, forgery and unlawful conversion of land, the witness (Buzugbe) who is currently with the Special Protection Unit of the Nigeria Police, Lagos Command told the court that the land which was jointly bought at the cost of N1.8 billion belonged to Adenuga and his business partner, Sunday, Kehinde Oyeniran, the complainant.
He was charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over offences of stealing, criminal diversion of fund and obtaining by false pretense.
Testifying before the court while being led in evidence by the EFCC prosecution counsel Anyanfe Ogunsina, the witness told the court that he led the team that investigated the case when it was brought to the anti-graft agency.
He said: “Sometime in 2013, a complaint of stealing, forgery and unlawful conversion of 22.867 hectares of land was brought to the EFCC for investigation.”
He said that upon receipt of the petition written by the defendant’s business partner, his team was detailed to investigate the matter.
” Following the complaint, the defendant was arrested and brought to EFCC office at Awolowo Road, Ikoyi. The petition was shown to the defendant and he volunteered response by writing.”
Testifying further, the witness said that the defendant was given a statement note which he wrote and signed his statement, adding that the statement was obtained from him in a serene and friendly atmosphere.
Beside his first statement, Adenuga later made four additional statements in the presence of investigation team, thereby bringing the statements he made to five.
The statements were tendered as exhibits and were admitted by the court.
Responding to another question by EFCC counsel, the witness said that following items they got when they searched the defendant’s house, they wrote some banks to ascertain which of the banks granted the loan for the purchase of the said hectares of land in dispute and from their findings, Wema Bank gave the loan but with conditions.
According to the witness, Wema bank agreed to give loan to the defendant and his business partner to purchase the land provided that the parties raised the sum of N750 million while the bank released the balance of N1.148 billion.
It was said that in order to raise the N750 million, Adenuga’s business partner (complainant) raised the sum of N530 million while the suspect (Adenuga) raised only N230 million and the money was paid into the defendant’s account.
“Wema bank paid the balance of the money in form of loan to the account of Convenant Property Company Limited belonging to Adenuga. The company was used to obtain the loan because it was an old registered company whereas the bank refused to use the account of Sugarland Convenant Property Development jointly owned by Adenuga and the complainant because it was a relatively new company.
After the receipt of the loan, the land was purchased and a deed of assignment was perfected to give it a legal backing and the ownership of the property was consequently transfered to the defendant and complainant as joint owners.
It was discovered that instead of sharing the land equitably, the defendant gave only 30 plots of land to the complainant who contributed the larger sum of N530 million out of N750 million contributed to meet the condition given by the bank.
More so, unknown to the complainant, Mike Adenuga went to the Ministry of Land Lagos to convert the ownership of the land to himself alone after forging and signing all the documents which he purportedly claimed were signed by him and other parties.
When the complainant discovered the illegal conversion of the land by Adenuga through forged documents, he confronted him and upon unsatisfactory explanation, he petitioned the EFCC to invedtigate the matter.
Under cross-examination by Adenuga’s counsel, the witness said that during their investigation,the defendant claimed that all the documents relating to the purchase of the land represents the totality of the parties.
“I expected that some of the applicants would have signed the document but that was not the case,” he said.
Responding to another question under cross examination, Buzugbe said that one Bukola Asoyebi comfirmed that he prepared the documents at the instance and behest of the defendant only.
On whether he got reply from the banks his team wrote to, the witness said that there was a reply from Wema Bank in response to the documents retrieved from the defendant’s house.
After the cross-examination by Adenuga’s counsel, Justice Ogunsanya adjourned the case till October 15 for continuation of trial.