Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is insisting that it will not close its case against Grace Tiaga, Director Legal Services at the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, being prosecuted for her role in the controversial Gas Supply Processing Agreement (GSPA) between Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) and the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Mohammed Hussain, lawyer to the anti-graft agency on Wednesday, reiterated the stance at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, insisting that Tiaga’ s death certificate be produced before the court to prove that she was truly dead and therefore could not stand trial.
Drama had started at the court, when Daniel Alumun, lawyer to Tiaga, told Justice Olukayode Adeniyi who had on November 4, ordered that the certificate be produced on Wednesday, that he could not do so because the document was not ready yet, and asked for more time to produce it, forcing the court to again adjourn to March 6 for the same purpose.
The EFCC had begun the prosecution of Tiaga, on allegations bordering on bribery in an amended 13-count charge bordering on bribery, alleging among others, she received bribe through her offshore bank account in signing the controversial GPSA, thereby violating various laws by entering into the Agreement without prior approval by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and a certificate of no objection to the contract from the Bureau of Public Enterprise (PBE).
Tiaga, who was first arraigned on September 20, 2019 before the court in the case, marked, FCT/HC/CR/504/19, initially on a- eight-court charge, but later amended on October 3, 2020 to 11-count before it was later raised to 13 on January 10 2021, however, pleaded not guilty to the allegations preferred against her.
However, the court was told on November 4 when all the parties returned after the prosecution, which called eight witnesses closed its case on February 27, 2023, and the Tiaga was directed to open her defence that she passed on, on August 1, 2023 at a hospital in Abuja.
Backing the submission with a letter, entitled “Hospital Death Declaration,” from Primus International Super Speciality Hospital, Karu New Extension, Abuja, to notify the court of the demise of Taiga, the lawyer applied for the discontinuance of the matter, to which the EFCC flatly refused, demanding for the death certificate.
Adeniyi after listening to both parties, had directed that death certificate be produced before the court on Wednesday, before adjourning the matter, but was told that on resumption that the document was not ready yet, only for the EFCC to insist that the certificate must be brought to the court as stipulated by the law before decision can be taken.