The Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, has told a Federal High Court sitting Abuja, that a suspended justice of the Supreme Court, Sylvester Ngwuta, used two similar standard international passports interchangeably.
A senior staff of NIS, Tanko Kutana, made the claim while being cross-examined by counsel for the defendant, Chief Kanu Agabi, SAN.
The senior lawyer was among seven superior court judges that were arrested between Oct. 7 and Oct. 8, 2016, after the DSS raided their homes in what it termed a “sting operation.”
Ugwuta is alleged to have been in possession of multiple standard travel passports and stashed foreign currencies in his Abuja home.
The witness said the service was not in the position to doubt the defendant when he showed proof of his missing international passport.
He said the service subsequently issued him a new one, based on the strength of the affidavit declaring his old passport missing.
Kutana, however, told the court that the service was taken aback to discover that the defendant was using the two passports stamped with visas simultaneously.
He said it was outright illegality to have and use two standard passports with similar registration number interchangeably.
Kutana said, “My Lord, the new passport was issued to Justice Ngwuta by the Immigration Service, having been convinced that he actually lost the first one.
“The service replaced the lost passport because it had no cause to doubt the affidavit evidence deposed to by the defendant when he reported the loss of the document.
“The forensic report shows that the defendant, Ngwuta using the two standard passports interchangeable, at the time of his arrest on Oct. 7, 2016 by the operatives of the Department of State Service.
“We would not have been here if the defendant had returned the recovered passport to the service when he found it.
“I did the analysis on the six passports to determine whether there was forgery and by the time I concluded my analysis of the passports I found no evidence of forgery in any of them.”
Kutana added that there were circumstances under which a citizen could have more than one passport, adding that it did not include having two similar ones.
However, Justice John Tsoho adjourned the trial until Oct. 20.
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