The Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday threw out the testimony of suspended top police officer Abba Kyari’s defence witness in his trial on cocaine trafficking charges brought against him and four other police officers by the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
Mr Kyari, a suspended deputy commissioner of police who headed the once-influential Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the police, is facing trial alongside four members of his team over their alleged handling of the cocaine they seized from two convicted drug traffickers in January 2022.
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Judge Emeka Nwite dismissed Mr Kyari’s second defence witness, El-John Nwonke, and struck out his previously given evidence on Wednesday following his repeated absence from two consecutive hearings.
Monday’s proceedings had stalled after the judge reluctantly granted an adjournment requested by the defence on the grounds of Mr Nwonke’s ill health, even though he declared the witness’ letter requesting two weeks for recovery from his ailment unconvincing.
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NDLEA’s prosecution lawyer, Joseph Sunday, also recalled during the Monday’s hearing that the previous proceedings of 29 September stalled after the defence called for an adjournment on the grounds that Mr Nwonke was outside Nigeria to attend a course.
Mr Nwonke, a police inspector subpoenaed to appear to testify at the instance of Mr Kyari, was absent from court again on Wednesday, a situation the prosecution latched onto to renew its call for the foreclosure of the witness’ evidence.
Julius Mba, the lawyer who appeared for Mr Kyari and the fourth defendant in the trial, Simon Agirgba, said Mr Nwonke, who started testifying in January, might be unaware that hearing in the case was rescheduled for Wednesday.
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Ruling, Judge Nwite said the witness had been given ample time to present his evidence and be cross-examined by the prosecution but failed to take advantage of it.
The judge consequently declared the witness’ testimony closed and struck out his evidence, which the prosecution did not have an opportunity to cross-examine him on.
The development comes as a setback for Mr Kyari, whose defence largely rests on the notion that he and his team are being targeted with prosecution because they arrested two cocaine traffickers corruptly cleared by NDLEA officials on their arrival at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, in January 2022.
Mr Nwonke, the dismissed witness, had used his time in the witness box since January to shed light on police investigations into the two cocaine smugglers and their confessions in the early days of their arrest by Mr Kyari’s team.
Request for NDLEA’s airport duty roster
Following the ruling that dismissed the second defence witness, Mr Mba reminded the court of the subpoena issued to compel the NDLEA to produce a list of its officers on duty at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, on January 19, 2022 – the day two cocaine smugglers were allowed to pass before their arrest by the police.
Mr Mba said the information would assist the defence in deciding how to proceed with the case.
But the prosecution lawyer, Mr Sunday, faulted the subpoena on the grounds that it was addressed to the NDLEA director general, a position he described as non-existent at the agency.
Mr Sunday told the court that the agency instead has a chairman/chief executive officer and a secretary.
He nevertheless assured the court that an NDLEA officer would bring the requested list of personnel on duty at the airport on the specified date on Thursday.
The judge adjourned the case until 8 October (Thursday) for continuation of the trial.
Dismissed witness’ relevance to Kyari’s defence
The NDLEA arrested Mr Kyari on 14 February 2022, after declaring him wanted over alleged links to an international drug cartel.
He was arraigned on cocaine charges on 7 March 2022 alongside the two cocaine smugglers and four IRT members: Sunday J. Ubua, an assistant commissioner of police; Bawa James, an assistant superintendent of police; Simon Agirgba, an inspector, and John Nuhu, also an inspector.
The NDLEA charged them with illicit dealing in and tampering with the cocaine seized from the two traffickers. The prosecution alleged that the defendants removed 17.55kg out of the 21.35kg of the substance they seized from the convicted traffickers and substituted the portion they took out with some other substance.
In another count which has Mr Kyari as the sole defendant, the NDLEA accused him of attempting to obstruct its authorised officers by offering $61,400 to a senior anti-narcotic operative as inducement to prevent the testing of the 17.55kg of cocaine.
The defendants have denied the charges and started their defence last year, after the prosecution called its witnesses and tendered exhibits to prove the charges.
Mr Kyari’s legal team has put forward a line of defence that casts him and his IRT members as innocent police officers targeted after arresting the two cocaine smugglers whom NDLEA officers had cleared.
On 28 January, Mr Nwonke, the police inspector brought as Mr Kyari’s second defence witness, testified on how officers of the NDLEA allegedly aided Chibunna Umeibe and Emeka Ezenwanne to beat security checks at Enugu International Airport on 19 January 2022, on arrival from Ethiopia with cocaine.
He said the now defunct IRT, a Mr Kyari-led elite police unit concerned with serious crimes involving risky operations, arrested the cocaine traffickers shortly after NDLEA officers cleared them at the airport.
The witness said he was serving with the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) of the Nigerian Police Force, Abuja, when the two suspects were arrested by the IRT officers and brought in for investigation.
He said he was part of the team that conducted the interview session for the suspects on 20 January 2022 when their statements were taken and the session recorded.
The witness said the recorded video was transferred into a digital video disc (DVD).
Mr Nwonke said the two traffickers, who were initially charged alongside Mr Kyari and the four police officers but were later convicted and jailed two years upon their pleading guilty in 2022, confessed that the police officers arrested them with the suspected cocaine at the airport after NDLEA officers on duty had cleared them.
The defence witness said the convicted drug traffickers told his team how the NDLEA officers at the point of entry used sign language to help them beat security checks on arrival, before the police eventually arrested them.
On 28 February, the court admitted the video recording brought by Mr Nwonke as Exhibit D-3. The recording captures convicted Mr Umeibe and Mr Ezenwanne making confessional statements.
The video was later played in open court on 16 March, with the two men describing how they allegedly bypassed security checks at the airport.
In the 27-minute-long video clip, Messrs Umeibe and Ezenwanne narrated how officers of the NDLEA allegedly aided them to bypass security checks at the Enugu International Airport before their arrest by the IRT.
Previous defence witness
Mr Kyari opened his defence in July last year, after the prosecution closed its case and the court dismissed the defendants’ no-case submission.
Adeshina Fasasi, described as a team lead with MTN’s incident management unit, testified as Mr Kyari’s first defence witness in July.
Subpoenaed at Mr Kyari’s instance, Mr Fasasi said an examination of Mr Kyari’s call log revealed no contact with any number linked to a suspected cocaine trafficker known as Mike Coke.
He said his review showed that his review of the call data record (CDR) showed that a phone number – 09136976496 – attributed to a contact tagged “Coke,” was registered to one Ruth Ayuba, and not to Mr Kyari.
Mr Fasasi also said MTN never recorded or stored the content of calls made between users, even if requested by law enforcement.
He also said MTN’s CDR system never captured WhatsApp messages, voice recordings, or saved contact names on a mobile device.
He said the CDR only captured voice and SMS metadata, location information, and device types.
Under cross-examination by the prosecution team, he said was not a direct employee of MTN Nigeria. He said he only worked as part of a managed services team recognised by the telecoms company.
He admitted that he had not read the full content of the report tendered in court and could not speak to its entirety.
Prosecution’s case
By June 2024, the NDLEA had called 15 out of its 16 proposed prosecution witnesses.
In July 2022, during the prosecution’s presentation, the court admitted $61,400 cash Mr Kyari allegedly offered to an NDLEA operative as bribes.
The court admitted the cash evidence alongside 24 packs of cocaine, which the prosecution tendered through its third witness, Peter Joshua, an operative of the anti-narcotics agency.
Mr Joshua told the court that the foreign currency was given to him on 25 January 2022, after he weighed and carried out preliminary tests on wraps of cocaine that were confiscated from Messrs Umeibe and Ezenwane.
Mr Kyari allegedly attempted to bribe the NDLEA official with the aim of compromising investigation into the seized cocaine substance.
In October 2022, NDLEA’s fourth prosecution witness, Mohammed Ajia, a commander at the agency, said forensic examinations revealed that only 80 per cent or four-fifth of the substance tested cocaine. The witness said the remaining 20 per cent or one-fifth of it was another substance.
In April 2025, the court ruled that Mr Kyari and his co-defendant had a case to answer and ordered them to enter defence.
Mr Kyari and his co-defendants are attending trial from prison, where the court remanded them after denying them bail on several occasions.
Earlier in March, Mr Kyari, and two of his brothers were acquitted in a separate non-declaration of assets case.
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