<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By Edith Nwapi<\/p>\n
An Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) witness, told an Abuja High Court that the Chairman of the former Ministry of Aviation Chairman of Tenders Board, Mr Abel Enitan, was not on trial alongside former minister Hadi Sirika.<\/p>\n
Sirika is being prosecuted by the EFCC on behalf of the Federal Government, before Justice Sylvanus Oriji, sitting in Maitama, Abuja.<\/p>\n
He is standing trial alongside his daughter, Fatima; his son-in-law, Hamman Jalal Sule; and a company purportedly owned by the couple, Al Buraq Global Investment Limited, on a six-count charge bordering on abuse of office and contract fraud involving \u20a62.8 billion.<\/p>\n
Mr Christopher Odofin\u00a0 , EFCC 12th witness PW 12 admitted that Enitan, was the Permanent Secretary of the Aviation Ministry when the contract was awarded to Al-Buraq Global Investment Ltd by the federal government.<\/p>\n
The witness\u00a0 was cross-examined by Efut Okoi counsel for Sirika\u2019s daughter, Fatima who is\u00a0 the 2nd defendant,.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0 also admitted that the Director of Public Procurement, Musa Odiniya, who cleared the award of the contract was also not on trial by the anti-graft agency.<\/p>\n
The PW12 confirmed to the court that the second defendant was a staff member of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), which, he said, was wholly owned by the Federal Government of Nigeria but operated as a limited liability company.<\/p>\n
According to the witness, the EFCC did not receive any petitions against Fatima, adding that the NNPCL had also not filed any petitions against her.<\/p>\n
During cross-examination by counsel for the third defendant, P.A. Adewuyi, Odofin told the court that Hamman Jalal Sule was a staff member of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).<\/p>\n
He said the NUPRC was not an agency under the Ministry of Aviation, adding that Exhibits 13 and 14, earlier tendered by the prosecution, did not emanate from the commission but from the aviation ministry.<\/p>\n
He added that the signatory to the two documents was not answerable to the third defendant.<\/p>\n
Answering another question, the PW12 told the court that there was no land available for the execution of the apron expansion contract awarded to the fourth defendant, Al Buraq Global Investment Limited.<\/p>\n
He added that he could not say whether the fact that the contract had not been rescinded meant it was not illegal.<\/p>\n
The prosecution witness, however, denied knowing that the contentious contract had been re-awarded to Al Buraq by the Ministry of Aviation on 17 March 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not aware that the Ministry of Aviation re-awarded the contract for the expansion of the apron at the Katsina Airport to Al Buraq on 17th March, 2025,\u201d Odofin told the court.<\/p>\n
Following an application for adjournment by counsel for Al Buraq Global Investment Limited, Michael Numa, SAN, Justice Oriji adjourned the case until Oct. 28 for the continuation of the cross-examination of PW12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) witness, told an Abuja High Court that the Chairman of the former Ministry of Aviation Chairman of Tenders Board, Mr Abel Enitan, was not on trial alongside former minister Hadi Sirika.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[1035,1036],"class_list":["post-1812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-and-security","tag-alleged-n1-4bn-airport-fraud-ex-tenders-board-chair","tag-director-not-on-trial-efcc-witness"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/EFCC.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1812"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1814,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions\/1814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primerisenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}