Sexual Harassment: Nothing Found On UNICAL Professor’s Phone, Forensic Analyst Tells Court

A forensic analyst, Babagana Musa Mingali, on Thursday, told Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja, that a mobile phone belonging to the suspended Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, Prof. Cyril Ndifon, was empty when he analysed it.

Babagana, a Chief Superintendent of Police who works in the office of the National Security Adviser, is the second Defence Witness (DW2) brought to court through a subpoena to give evidence in the case between Prof. Ndifon and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

Ndifon, alongside his lawyer, Samuel Anyanwu, is standing trial on four counts of alleged sexual harassment, cybercrime, and attempt to pervert the course of justice.

ICPC alleged that Prof. Ndifon while serving as the Dean of the Faculty of Law at UNICAL, asked the female diploma student identified as TKJ to send him “pornographic, indecent, and obscene photographs of herself” through WhatsApp chats.

Anyanwu, one of the lawyers for the defence, was joined in the amended charge filed on January 22, 2024, by the ICPC on the allegation that he called one of the prosecution witnesses on her mobile phone during the pendency of the charge against Ndifon to threaten her.

Both defendants pleaded not guilty when the charges were read to them.

At Friday’s proceedings, led in evidence by the defence counsel, Joe Agi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Babagana told the court that he joined the Nigerian Police Force in 2010 and was posted to the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) in 2017.

He told the court that he got a letter from the court dated July 5, 2024, which came with two mobile phones, ordering a forensic analysis of the two phones belonging to Ndifon and his co-defendant, Anyanwu.

Babagana said he conducted the analysis on the mobile phones at the NSA lab and wrote a report on them, dated August 8, 2024, presenting the same to the court.

Justice Omotosho admitted both the letter and the report as exhibits in the matter.

Babagana told the court that his office used highly professional tools in trying to extract documents from the phone but could not

“My lord, we used the universal forensic extraction device, a touch Tool and some accompanying cables, 2070 and 100, including some external storage devices, in trying to extract the data,” he said.

When asked if he saw any naked photographs, email trails, voice recordings, text messages and conversations, Babagana said, “I did not find any.”

He claimed people from other agencies, including the ICPC, have been posted to the NSA lab.

The analyst said no relevant information was found on the two phones between January 2021 and January 2024, as the WhatsApp applications were out of date.

According to him, there was a need to return them to the owners to update them to achieve the desired result.

During the cross-examination by ICPC’s counsel, Osuobeni Akponimisingha, Babagana said he has actively practised forensic analysis for about five years.

He said he knew the Nigerian Police, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and the ICPC had forensic labs but said he was yet to see that of the ICPC.

Babagana, however, admitted that the same device (Touch Tool) used by his office was also used by the ICPC in generating Exhibit H, which are the images from the mobile phone belonging to the professor, adding that the other forensic labs can do the same thing his office does.

The analyst further admitted that it would be possible to find something in the phones if the WhatsApp accounts were updated.

After cross-examination, Justice Omotosho adjourned till April 3 for a continuation of the defence.

Sexual Harassment: Nothing Found On UNICAL Professor’s Phone, Forensic Analyst Tells Court is first published on The Whistler Newspaper