Four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, representing Farouk
Lawan have petitioned the Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed
Abubakar, asking for a face-to-face confrontation between the lawmaker
and Otedola.
The lawyers are Mike Ozekhome, Rickey Tarfa, Isreal Olorundare and Sam Ologunorisa.
In a petition dated June 22 and obtained by our
correspondent on Saturday, the lawyers urged the police to thoroughly
investigate the allegation.
They said Lawan was willing “to have a face-to-face
confrontation with Otedola before you (the IG) in the course of
investigation into this matter.”
The SANs also faulted the video which allegedly contained what transpired between Otedola and their client.
They challenged the “State Security Service, the
police, Mr. Otedola or any other person for that matter, to produce for
public viewing the video or film and call logs of the conversation
between him (Lawan) and Otedola unedited and undoctored.”
According to them, Lawan never visited Otedola’s house in Lagos to collect the $500,000.
The lawyers also claimed that the lawmaker did not
hide the so-called bribe money “in his pocket, and the leftover inside
his cap.”
In a nine-page petition titled, “Honourable Farouk
Lawan and Mr. Femi Otedola: When the complainant becomes the suspect”,
the lawyers said that their client briefed them that he never solicited
$3m or any other sum from Otedola as bribe.
They stated, “The truth is that contrary to the
various false publications in the press, which appear to swing the mood
of the public against our client, our client maintains that whilst the
report of the committee had been compiled, written and presented before
the House and he was putting finishing touches to its formal debate in
his hotel room at Protea Hotel, Apo, Abuja (to which he had relocated
from his house to escape the unbearable pressure mounted on him by oil
marketers, including Mr. Otedola), he was surprised when Otedola
surfaced in the hotel on Saturday, 21, April, 2012 and called his room
number.
“When our client let him in, he brought out a bundle
of documents which he claimed showed that one of his oil companies,
Zenon Oil, already indicted in the report, did not participate in the
fuel subsidy scam.
“Our client states that, at this time, both Zenon Oil
and AP Petroleum (now Forte Oil) had been both indicted based on
available evidence. Mr. Otedola claimed that he was already aware of
this indictment hence he decided to personally bring document to
convince our client that that was not the case.”
The lawyers stated that their client collected the
documents, adding that as Otedola was about to leave, he allegedly
handed over $250,000 to Lawan.
They said Otedola told Lawan to ensure that his companies were removed from the list of indicted companies.
The lawyers stated, “This was the evening of Monday,
April 23, a few days before the report was to be debated in the House,
but few days after the final report had actually been laid before the
House on April 17, 2012. Our client informed us that he had collected
the money to display as exhibit that the committee had been under severe
pressure and subtle threat to compromise its report.
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