HOW I COURIERED €233,000 TO EVANS AND HIS MEN – WITNESS

IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – A Manager at Maydonn Pharmaceutical Company( Idumota) Mr. Uchenna Okagwu on Friday told a Lagos High Court, sitting in Ikeja, how he couriered €233, 000 to a location in Okota, where his boss, Mr. Donatus Duru was held hostage by his assailant. Okagwu is the second prosecution witness in the kidnapping trial of Chukwudimeme Onwuamadike a.k.a. Evans.

Led in evidence-in-chief by a director in the Directorate of Public Prosecution, DPP, Ms. Titiayo Shitta-Bey, the witness said he was manager of Idumota branch of his master’s company, and that he worked to raise money to rescue his boss by keeping money for his rescue.

Okagwu said “After about two months, I was called by Mr. Anslem Duru his brother that we have to go and rescue him with the money gathered. “I was called to come and deliver the money to the kidnappers.” He further explained that based on instruction, he took the sum of 233,000 Euros counted at the residence of his brother’s house at Maryland in Anthony village to the designated point where the kidnappers will pick up the ransom. He said that Mr. Anslem Duru who had earlier been communicating with some people on the phone handed his phone to him because he was told that while he is on transit to deliver the money he will be receiving call from the abductors.

Giving description of how he delivered the money, he said, “They put it inside the polythene bag and wrapped it very well,  I tucked it under the passenger’s seat.

“Anslem gave me his phone that it is with his phone that I will be receiving call to direct me to where they will direct.He said as he moved out around 8 p.m at night, while driving, he started to receive call. In his testimony, “I just heard the voice saying I should not make any mistake that I will be shot if I did.”

He said upon this he was being directed and commanded to move to the location, giving him instruction from time to time. He said on getting to a street at Okota area where he was directed, to a street immediately after a Canal that Okada Riders use to stay, he was queried if he had someone with him in the car which he said there was no one with him. He said, they asked if he was seeing a blinking light on an electric pole, he said he saw it.

Okagwu said that at a point of the back-and-forth movement they subjected him to as he made to deliver to them, he added that they said to him, “Park. Come down with the ransom and walk to the back of the vehicle. As I walked towards the back of my vehicle, like three steps, the boys commanded that I should drop the money.”

I observed a car with full lights on at the end of the street linked to the street. He concluded that after dropping the bag of money, he quickly moved down to the house but stressed that he saw a vehicle that looked liked an SUV. While being cross-examined by Mr. Kayode Ogungbeje, the Counsel to four out of the six defendants, Okagwu said that he did not hand over the money to anybody in particular at the location.Other counsel in the matter however did not cross examine the witness.

Earlier, when the kidnap victim, Mr. Donatus Duru was concluding his evidence before the court, Mr. Ogungbeje during the process of cross examination got pissed of at some points with the manner the star witness was answering his questions and submitted.He was expecting that the witness should halt his responses by giving yes or no answers even while it was apparent that the suspects was trying to answer him by way of mouthing a sentence.

Ogungbeje thus addressed the trial judge, “Since the second prosecution witness is not willing to answer the questions posed to him in this cross examination and my complaints in this regard is taken with a pinch of salt, I shall stop further cross examination, I’m much obliged.” The prosecutor however described his defence counsel’s position as unfortunate.Stressing that the witness response as to the date he was kidnapped might have been ambiguous and needed to be clarified.

It is noteworthy that the statement of the witness to the police that he was kidnapped on 14th April, 2017 instead of the date of 14th February, 2017 he claimed he was kidnapped was what became an issue between Mr. Ogungbeje and Shitta-Bey at the conclusion of the second prosecution witness, which the prosecution attempted to seek clarification that led to the claim that the witness was uncooperative.

The judge in his response said that “it is the right of the legal counsel to conduct his case the way he feels.”The prosecution said “Under cross examination, the date of 14th of February or 14th of April was a mistake.

But Ogungbeje sprang to his feet to say that it was not ambiguity. ” He said it on oath. The date is in a permanent form,” he stressed. Before Mr. Duru was discharged from the box, he reiterated that, “I wrote statement after my escape, I wasn’t myself. Instead of 14th February, I made a mistake of writing 14th May. Hearing has been adjourned till June 22, 2018.