The FCT High Court in Maitama, Abuja, on Thursday, rejected key exhibits presented by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to prove its N2.8 billion fraud charges against former Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, and his co-defendants.
The rejected exhibits were the extra-judicial statements of two of Mr Sirika’s co-defendants—his daughter, Fatima Sirika, and her husband, Jalal Hamma.
“The statements of the second and third defendants (Ms Sirika and Jalal Hamma) made at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) office are inadmissible for non-compliance with the provision of Section 15(4) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015,” the trial judge, Sylvanus Oriji, ruled on Thursday.
Mr Oriji gave the ruling following the two defendants’ challenge to the voluntariness of the statements.
The statements, said to be confessional, were pivotal to the EFCC’s case.
The EFCC obtained the couple’s statements in 2024 when it invited them during investigations into the N2.8 billion contract fraud.
EFCC alleged that Mr Sirika allegedly spearheaded the fraud while in office as the aviation minister with participation from his daughter and son-in-law.
Mr Sirika served in that role between 2015 and 2023, during the tenure of the late former President Muhammadu Buhari.
In July 2025, EFCC’s lawyer Rotimi Jacobs, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), sought to tender as evidence the couple’s extrajudicial statements through a prosecution witness, Adekunle Odofin, who is an investigator with the anti-graft agency.
But the two defendants, through their lawyers, challenged the voluntariness of the statements.
The defence lawyers said the handwritten documents were confessional statements obtained from the two defendants under duress.
This prompted the judge to order a trial-within-trial to verify the claim.
Mr Odofin, the EFCC investigator, appeared as a prosecution witness in the trial-within-trial, insisting that the defendants freely wrote the statements.
He informed the court that Ms Sirika wrote her statement when she same to EFCC’s office along with two lawyers on 26 February 2024 to honour an invitation.
He insisted that the cautionary word was administered to her and that she volunteered to give her statement.
He said her husband, Hamman, who was similarly invited, wrote his own statement when he visited the EFCC’s office with one lawyer on 27 February 2024.
He confirmed that there was no video recording of the encounters on both occasions.
Prosecution lawyer, Oluwaleke Atolagbe, argued that statement writing process in both cases complied with Sections 15(4) and 17(2) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015. He said video recording is not mandatory when a suspect volunteers a statement, adding that the law makes it optional by using the operative word “may”.
The defence lawyers poked a hole at the arguments, insisting that it was mandatory for the statement writing to be videotaped.
In his ruling on Thursday, the judge said “may”, as used in the provision of ACJA, imposes a duty on officers of law enforcement agencies to comply with the provisions of the law without any room for discretion.
“It is clear from the evidence of the witness that there was no compliance with the provisions of Section 15(4) of the ACJA 2015 when the statements of the second and third defendants were obtained by officers of the EFCC,” the judge ruled.
It is not clear yet whether the EFCC would appeal the decision.
After the ruling on Thursday, the defence lawyer for Mr Hamma, Sanusi Musa, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), drew the court’s attention to an application he filed in October 2025 for the striking out of the proof of evidence and witness testimonies.
The proof of evidence is the totality of the documents the prosecution frontloaded offering the complete picture of the evidence it intends to rely on during trial.
Striking out a proof of evidence in the middle of trial means a collapse of the entire case midway.
Mr Musa said the EFCC had also filed a counter-affidavit opposing the motion.
However, the prosecution lawyer, Mr Atolabge, said the prosecution was not prepared for the matter to proceed.
Thereafter, the judge adjourned the matter until 2 June.
The EFCC is prosecuting Mr Sirika, alongside his daughter, Fatima Sirika, her husband, Jalal Hamma, and the couple’s firm, Al Buraq Global Investment, on six counts of contract fraud involving N2.8 billion.
EFCC alleged that the couple unduly got aviation ministry contracts worth more than a billion naira, while Mr Sirika supervised the ministry.
The commission also charged Mr Sirika with abuse of office for allegedly awarding contracts to a company in which his daughter and her husband had interests.
The charges also accuse Mr Sirika of using his power to confer an unfair advantage on Al Buraq Global Investment Limited, a company linked to his daughter and her husband. This allegedly involved a N1.5 billion contract for the Katsina Airport Apron Extension.
Also, the anti-graft agency alleged that Fatima and her husband held indirect private interests in the contract, with N1.3 billion allegedly traced to Mr Sirika as proceeds of criminal conduct in the form of gratification.
The EFCC said the act violates Section 12 of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) Act.
All defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.
