THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has petitioned the Minister of
Police Affairs, demanding investigations into the alleged unethical
practice by the telecommunications company, MTN, in the handling of the
call data records of the suspended president of the Court of Appeal,
Justice Isa Ayo Salami.
The petition, dated October 10 and entitled “MTN: Perverting the
Course of Justice,” was jointly signed by Idowu Jegede on behalf of Osun
and Ekiti state chapters of the PDP.
Another petition signed by the petitioners’ counsel on same day,
entitled “MTN’s deceitful manipulation of Data Call Records, was to the
Director-General of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC),
accusing the communications outfit of tampering with Salami’s call logs
data to protect him.
In the two petitions, the petitioners were demanding investigation
into what allegedly motivated MTN to deliberately withhold an important
component of Salami’s call data record.
They were also claiming that the company made spirited attempt to
repudiate the call logs that it had earlier released to a competent law
enforcement agency.
“Our clients approached the police to enable them to establish
suspected corruption on the part of members of the Osun and Ekiti
gubernatorial appeal panels; even as their petitions were pending at the
time before the National Judicial Council (NJC),” the petition read.
Meanwhile, the move by the PDP to get Salami in the dock for alleged
perjury had reportedly gone far, with request already made for certified
copies of the reports of the Justices Umaru Abdullahi and Ibrahim Auta
panels, which are expected to form the kernel of the planned
prosecution.
According to a former governor of Ekiti State, Chief Segun Oni, “we
should all be equal before the law. If the man in the street commits
perjury, he would not be allowed to go scot-free. Why then should a
highly placed judicial officer have an allegation of the same offence
swirling around him and we are all turning a blind eye?
“As a matter of fact, if, as our lawyers are telling us, perjury
attracts a prison term of 14 years, Justice Ayo Salami should do double
that time in prison, if (and it is a big if) he is found culpable at the
end of the day. Even if government wants to exercise any prerogative
or leeway in the matter, it must be after the legal process has been
fully exhausted.
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