A Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) officer said on Friday that a passport with the name Tali Shani, which was presented in a London property ownership case involving senior lawyer Mike Ozekhome, is fake.
Akim Aridegbe, a principal staff officer to the Comptroller-General of the NIS, said this at the FCT High Court in Abuja, during the impersonation and forgery trial of Mr Ozekhome and his co-accused, Ponfa Useni.
Aridegbe, who is the first prosecution witness, said the Nigerian passport numbered A07535463, “was not issued by the Nigerian Immigration Service; it is not in our database…the passport belonging to Tali Shani is fake.”
On 27 February, the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) arraigned Ozekhome and Useni on 12 counts of forgery and impersonation.
Useni is a son of the late Jeremiah Useni, who was the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during the military regime of the late General Sani Abacha.
According to the charges, Messrs Ozekhome and Useni conspired in 2020 alongside the late Jeremiah Useni, a retired general and made “a false Nigerian International Passport No. A07535463 with the name Tali Shani, and purportedly to have been issued by the Nigeria Immigration Service” to claim a property in the United Kingdom.
Similarly, the prosecution charged them with “using a false passport to facilitate the claim of the property.”
The prosecution also alleged that Ozekhome helped Ponfa Useni to impersonate Tali Shani in 2020. Together, they allegedly created a fake “Irrevocable Power of Attorney” to help Ozekhome claim the property.
They denied all the allegations.
During Friday’s proceedings, the witness informed the court that they had received letters from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to authenticate the passports of Ponfa Useni and Tali Shani.
After checking the Immigration’s database, they discovered that “one of the passports was not issued by the NIS while the other, belonging to one Useni, was issued by the NIS,” the witness said.
This finding was forwarded to the EFCC.
The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Rotimi Oyedepo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), presented through the witness the letter EFCC wrote to the NIS to authenticate the passports and the NIS’ response to EFCC as evidence.
The defence lawyers did not object to the documents’ admissibility.
Thereafter, the witness explained the procedure for the issuance of the passport to the court.
He noted that after an online payment for the passport, the database generates the record, the breeder documents are then generated and input into the system, alongside the National Identification Number (NIN).
This then generates the data for every applicant for a passport. He said the Nigerian passports are then encrypted into the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which makes it easier for international borders to access biometric data.
Therefore, any passport the NIS produces goes through a systematic process before its final production. But such was not the case with Tali Shani.
The witness said the NIS system works in such a way that, “once you insert a name, it brings out the particulars and history of that person, but on inserting this Tali Shani, no record was found.”
He also said the NIS did not have any record of payments in respect to this particular passport.
Similarly, the witness told the court that the NIS received a letter from the EFCC to interview Abdulkadir Lawal, but after checking the legal unit and nominal roll of the NIS, “no name of such exists.”
“We then communicated our findings to the EFCC,” he said.
The NIS extended their search to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel System (IPPIS) to be sure of their discovery and thus, “no name like that exists.”
Also, the EFCC requested the authentication of a letter Abdulkadir Lawal wrote, the witness said.
He stated that the Comptroller General of NIS set up a panel to investigate the letter. The witness said he headed the panel.
“The letter written by the same Abdulkadir Lawal never represented the NIS…it means the letter is fake,” Aridegbe said of the finding of his panel.
The Correspondence between the EFCC and the NIS was tendered as evidence, but the first and second defendants’ lawyers, Tayo Oyetibo, a SAN, and E.R Onoja, also a SAN, respectively, reserved their objection for their final addresses.
Trial judge, Chizoba Oji, admitted the documents as exhibits.
During cross-examination by Ozkheome’s lawyer, Mr Oyetibo, the witness informed the court that he became a principal staff officer to the comptroller-general in December 2023 but was on out-post duty outside Nigeria prior to July 2023.
