The prosecution witness of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nuhu Buhari, has told the Federal High Court in Lagos that he did not participate in the investigation of the criminal allegation against Azeez Fashola, a Nigerian musician also known as Naira Marley.
The witness said this on Thursday, October 24, 2019 during his cross-examination at the ongoing trial of the artiste.
When asked by Naira Marley’s lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, what role he played in the investigation, the witness, who is also the head of the anti-graft agency’s forensic department, said he was not involved apart from the forensic examination that he did.
“Apart from the digital forensic examination, I did not play any role during the investigation of this case, ” Nuru said.
The investigator also owned up that he was never instructed to scrutinise the ownership of the gadgets seized from the musician but he did it as standard procedure.
He said, “I was never instructed to investigate the ownership of the device but my standard is that I confirm the ownership of the device.”
The series of questioning that followed the response were regarding the process of registering a laptop.
Naira Marley’s lawyer asked Buhari if the name Azeez Fashola appeared anywhere in his report marked exhibit E. to which he answered in the negative.
Buhari also confirmed that anyone could have registered a device as “Naira Marley”, the stage name of the musician.
Questioning the choice of words used in filing the report, Ojo asked the witness to define what it means in his kind of profession to use certain words, including ‘obvious’ and ‘appears’.
In response, Buhari explained that ‘appears’ doesn’t connote certainty.
Following up, Ojo asked the witness to read page 6, line 10 of his forensic report marked as exhibit E.
It reads: “Finally, based on the analysis of the device, it appears that the user purchased credit card information from the sites analysed and used them for online shopping.”
The cross-examination was interrupted by an argument among lawyers over sitting space in court, which led to the adjournment of the matter at the instance of the court to December 11 and 12 for the continuation of cross-examination of the prosecution witness.
Naira Marley is being prosecuted for Internet fraud among other crimes.
