Proceedings in the trial of Ali Bello, a nephew of former Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello, took a dramatic turn on Thursday as a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered an investigation into alleged evidence tampering involving a court registrar and one of the defendants.
Justice James Omotosho directed the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Nigeria Police Force to probe the court registrar, Nasiru Onimisi Zubairu, following claims that he interfered with exhibits linked to the case.
Ali Bello is standing trial alongside Dauda Sulaiman on a 10-count charge bordering on an alleged N10.27 billion fraud. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said other suspects, including Abdulsalami Hudu, remain at large.
During the hearing, the judge revealed that Zubairu had allegedly admitted that Sulaiman approached him to delete WhatsApp messages from a mobile phone already admitted as evidence and marked as exhibits.
The court played a recorded confession in which the registrar reportedly said he was offered a house in exchange for deleting certain messages. Zubairu testified that he accessed only two chats but could not remember their contents.
An EFCC investigative officer, Muhammed Audu Abubakar, told the court that several messages dating between 2020 and 2022 had been erased, including conversations allegedly referencing transfers of large sums of money.
Prosecution counsel, Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN, urged the court to revoke Sulaiman’s bail and order a forensic examination of the affected exhibits. Defence lawyers, however, asked the court to await the outcome of the investigation.
Justice Omotosho adjourned the trial until Monday and referred the matter to security agencies for further inquiry.
The EFCC alleges that Bello and Sulaiman diverted billions of naira from the Kogi State treasury and channelled the funds through a Bureau de Change operator in Abuja for personal use, in violation of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011.
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