In yesterday’s Lagos State Special Offenses Court session in Ikeja, Victor Onyejiuwa, a prosecution witness in the trial of Godwin Emefiele, the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), described to the court how he was coerced into paying a $600,000 bribe in exchange for a contract award.
Following the admission of collecting the bribe by John Ayoh, another prosecution witness, who maintained that he was never on good terms with the previous CBN governor, Onyejiuwa related his version of the alleged bribery episode.
Emefiele and Henry Omoile, his co-defendant, are presently on trial for a total of 26 counts.
As the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, led prosecution attorney Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN, testified before Justice Oshodi yesterday, Onyejiuwa, the managing director of Resource Computer Limited, informed the court that his company provides services to both private and public enterprises.
According to him, his company provides specialized hardware and software solutions for a range of ICT demands, including security, networking, storage, backup, data protection and recovery, virtualization, data center solutions, and ICT training and education services.
From 2014 until 2019, Onyejiuwa informed the court, his company assisted the apex bank with information and communication technologies.
According to the witness, his company received at least five contracts within the allotted time.
He continued by saying that the CBN had given his business a contract for “enterprise storage and servers” at some point in 2017.
The contractor claimed that after his company completed the contract, a former CBN director approached him and indicated that the “management needs something” from the deal.
The witness claimed that the director threatened to withhold the monies intended for the contract from the apex bank if he did not comply.
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