Justice Binta Murtala Nyako of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, has struck out the criminal charges filed against a property developer, Mr Cecil Osakwe.
The court struck out the charge following its withdrawal by the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.
Justice Nyako discharged Osakwe, after the prosecutor, Mamman Alibaba, moved motion for the withdrawal of the criminal charge.
Justice Nyako held, “it is hereby ordered as follows: That as requested by the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Charge be and it is accordingly struck out.
“That the Defendant is hereby discharged”.
The federal government had filed a criminal charge against Osakwe over allegation of electricity theft.
Before the case was struck out by the court, at the last adjourned date, the case was stalled due to some discrepancies in the statement of one of witnesses called by the federal government.
At the resumed trial, the prosecutor, Mr Alibaba Mamman called his witness, Mr John Suleiman who adopted his witness statement and identified some exhibits said to be the numbers of metres that were allegedly tempered with.
The defence counsel, Mr Victor Giwa, however, raised objections to the tendering of the exhibits on the grounds that the prosecutor had not attached such documents to the witness statement of Suleiman that he made available to him.
The trial judge, Justice Binta Nyako agreed that, if such documents were not attached to Suleiman’s witness statement, he was not the right person to tender the documents in court.
In view of the following, the prosecutor prayed the court for an adjournment to enable him put his house in order.
Earlier, a prosecution witness, Mr Gabriel Ojo who identified himself as a former staff of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, (AEDC) told the court that he had received a complaint from a whistle blower on the alleged theft of electricity at one of the property of the defendant.
Ojo said that he constituted a team who investigated the complaint after which the report was forwarded to the management of the AEDC.
“I believe that the management passed the report to the revenue protection unit but I do not know what happened thereafter,” Ojo said.
He also told the court that he could not remember the names of the security guards at the defendants property that his team interacted with in the course of their investigations.
