A witness in the trial of former Aviation Minister Hadi Abubakar Sirika and three co-defendants over a ₦2.8 billion contract dispute at Katsina Airport has confirmed that two senior ministry officials, Abel Enitan, then Permanent Secretary, and Musa Odiniya, Director of Procurement, are not being charged in the case. The confirmation came during cross-examination of Christopher Odofin, an EFCC investigator and the 12th prosecution witness, before Justice Sylvanus Oriji in the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory.
Odofin testified under oath that neither Enitan nor Odiniya appears in the six-count charge against Sirika, his daughter Fatima Sirika, her husband Hamman Jalal Sule, and their company, Al Buraq Global Investment Limited. The former minister is accused of abusing his office to confer an unfair advantage on Al Buraq Global Investment Limited by allegedly using his position to influence the award of a contract for the apron extension worth ₦1,498,300,750, among other alleged offences.
The prosecution claims violations of Sections 12 and 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000; Section 17(b) of the EFCC (Establishment) Act, 2004; and Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap. 532, Laws of the FCT. All defendants have denied the charges.
Odofin admitted that Enitan, who was the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Aviation and Chairman of the ministry’s Ministerial Tenders Board at the time the contract was awarded, was not on trial over the contentious contract. Similarly, Odiniya, the procurement director, was excluded from the trial. PW12 confirmed to the court that the second defendant was a staff member of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL). According to the witness, the EFCC did not receive any petition against Fatima, adding that the NNPCL had also not filed any petition against her.
The third defendant, Hamman Jalal Sule, works for the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), an agency separate from the Aviation Ministry. Odofin explained that exhibits linked to Sule did not originate from the NUPRC but from the ministry, and that the signatory to those documents was not under Sule’s authority. When pressed about the contract’s validity, Odofin admitted no land was available for the project when it was awarded to Al Buraq Global Investment Limited. He refused to speculate whether the contract’s continuation implied legality, citing insufficient evidence.
Odofin also denied awareness of a reported re-award of the same contract to Al Buraq on March 17, 2025, stating he had no knowledge of such a decision. The hearing was adjourned until October 28 to allow further cross-examination of Odofin, following a request from counsel for Al Buraq Global Investment Limited.
