From Sola Ojo
The Kaduna Zonal Directorate of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arraigned Shehu Abdu and Isah Saidu before Justice A. Isiaka for giving false information to the Commission.
The defendants, who were arraigned on Monday, June 2, 2025, were being prosecuted for falsely presenting themselves as friends to Ji Zhou, a Chinese national, who was arrested by the EFCC for illegal mining of solid minerals and economic sabotage.
Abdu and Isah, while standing as sureties for Zhou for EFCC’s administrative bail, claimed that he was well known to them and promised to produce him whenever he was needed by the Commission and agreed to forfeit the sum of N10 million bail bond if they failed to do so.
The suspect was released to them based on these assurances. However, they failed to produce the suspect when he was needed, disclosing that they didn’t know him but were hired by the suspect through his lawyer for the sum of N40,000 to stand as his sureties.
The charge against Abdu reads: “That you, SHEHU ABDU, on or about the 8th of May, 2023, in Kaduna, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, gave false information to a public servant which made him to release one Ji Zhou on administrative bail, an act which he would not have done had the true state of facts been known to him and which information you knew was false and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 105(a) of the Kaduna State Penal Code Law, 2017 and punishable under Section 105 of the same Law.”
The charge against Saidu reads: “That you, ISAH SAIDU, on or about the 10th of May, 2023, in Kaduna, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, gave false information to a public servant which made him to release one Ji Zhou on administrative bail, an act which he would not have done had the true state of facts been known to him and which information you knew was false and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 105(a) of the Kaduna State Penal Code Law, 2017 and punishable under Section 105 of the same Law.”
They pleaded “not guilty” to the charges, following which prosecution counsel, Y. J. Matiyak Esq., urged the court for a trial date and for the defendants to be remanded in the Nigeria Correctional Centre, Kaduna, pending their trial.
Justice Isiaka adjourned the case till Monday, June 16, 2025, for the ruling on their bail application and ordered that the defendants be remanded in Kaduna Correctional Centre.