The Lagos State Special Offences Court, Ikeja, has admitted as exhibits extra-judicial statements Godwin Emefiele made to the EFCC in October and November 2023, after dismissing his objections to their admissibility.
The Lagos State Special Offences Court, Ikeja, has dismissed objections raised by former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele to the admissibility of extra-judicial statements he made to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and admitted the statements as exhibits in his ongoing trial.
Justice Rahman Oshodi held that none of the statements amounted to a confession and that no trial-within-a-trial was required to determine their admissibility. The judge held that for an extra-judicial statement to qualify as confessional, it must contain an unequivocal admission of the offences alleged against its maker, and found that nothing in Emefiele's statements could be construed as such an admission.
The statements, said to have been made by Emefiele on 27 and 30 October, and on 11, 12 and 13 November 2023, were tendered by the EFCC and admitted by the court as exhibits.
Emefiele's lead counsel, Olalekan Ojo, SAN, had urged the court to reject the statements, arguing that they were obtained involuntarily, under oppression and torture, while his client was held by the Department of State Services for more than 157 days. Ojo relied on Section 4 of the Anti-Torture Act 2017, which excludes from evidence any statement or confession obtained through torture. The court held that this objection, like the confession-based one, did not warrant a trial-within-a-trial and that the objections lacked merit.
Emefiele and a co-defendant, Henry Omoile, are standing trial on a 19-count charge that includes allegations of abuse of office, corruption, receiving gratification and fraudulent property transactions, involving sums put at about $4.5 billion and ₦2.8 billion. The allegations remain unproven; Emefiele has not been found guilty or liable on any count, and the trial is ongoing.
Justice Oshodi adjourned the substantive trial to 6, 7 and 8 October and 11, 12 and 13 November 2026, for continuation.
What the ruling means
The ruling settles, for now, a preliminary evidential dispute rather than any question of guilt. In Nigerian criminal procedure, a “trial-within-a-trial” is a mini-hearing held inside the main trial to test whether a disputed statement was made voluntarily, before the court decides whether the court may consider it as evidence. Courts generally order one where a defendant specifically alleges that a statement is confessional and was obtained by force, threat or inducement. Justice Oshodi's finding — that the statements were not confessional and that the Anti-Torture Act objection did not change that outcome — meant the statements went in as exhibits without that separate hearing. The admission of the statements as exhibits is a procedural and evidential ruling: it determines what the court may look at, not what the court makes of it. The torture and DSS-detention claims raised by the defence remain contested assertions made in support of the objection; the court's ruling on admissibility is not a finding on whether that treatment occurred.
