Farouk Lawan had taken another bold step in the bribery case involving him and Otedola. Farouk had through Four Senior Advocates of Nigeria,petitioned the Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar,demanding that he should be allowed to face Otedola( face-to-face) on the matter
The Senior Advocates representing Farauk in the case are, Mike Ozekhome, Rickey Tarfa, Isreal Olorundare and Sam Ologunorisa.
The petition which was dated June 22 but got to the press on Saturday had advised the Police Task Force to carry out a proper. Investigation into the matter. 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 Lawyers had no reservation in faulting the video footage of the alleged bribe, asserting that it was fake.
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.”
The Lawyers have equally denied the fact that lawan went to Otedola’s house in Lagos to collect the bribe sum.
The lawyers also said that Farouk 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 had explained to them that he never took bribe from Otedola on any account.
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 buttresses further that their client collected the documents, and handed over the sum of $250,000 to Lawan when he was leaving. They further affirmed that Otedola pleaded with Farouk to get his company name out of the list of indicted oil firm.
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.
“Our client states that Otedola called him severally and even pleaded with him to come to his house at Aso Drive, Abuja, for more of the documents which he claimed to have forgotten to bring to our client’s hotel room at Protea Hotel.
“Our client said he played along by going to Otedola’s house in the early hours of April 22, 2012 during which Otedola handed over more documents and a further sum of $250,000. Our client states that Otedola further offered to pay a total of $3m.
“As soon as he had collected the total sum of $500,000, our client immediately wrote a letter at 3.47am on April 24, 2012 to the Chairman, House Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes titled “Offer of Monetary Inducement by Femi Otedola to influence Committee Report”.
“Our client attached the $500,000 offered by Otedola to him with a promise to bring another $2.5m.”
Ironically and most amazing, Adams Jagaba, the chairman of the House Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes, had since denied collecting any stated sum from Otedola.
The lawyers have avowed that from what they gathered from their clients, otedola actually initiated to entire deal.
They also asserted that the security operatives were not in the know of Otedola’s action of bribing Lawan.
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