President Goodluck Jonathan has noted that the failure of the Army Captain, Sagir Koli, who leaked the Ekiti-rigging audiotape to come forward and authenticate the tape explains why investigation into the matter cannot proceed.
The President told Thisday newspaper that he inquired from the Director-General of the Department of State Security, DSS, if the agency was investigating the matter, but was told that investigation could not proceed because Capt. Koli, who went underground after he was tipped off about the order from the army hierarchy to arrest him, has not come forward to validate the audio recording.
Following Capt. Koli’s escape, his15-year-old brother, Ahmadu Koli, a pupil of Army Children School, who was staying with him, was arrested, tortured at a military facility in Ibadan Oyo, and held back for about five months.
According to Jonathan, “In fact, when this story came up, I asked the DG, Department of State Security Service if they had investigated the matter, and he told me that they had some investigations, and then called for the person who claimed he recorded it and that he disappeared and nobody can reach him.”
While noting that there was no formal petition before the security agency on the matter, the President noted that to satisfy general interest, “they wanted to have him interviewed to know where this was coming from. If someone comes up with a spurious allegation that has no substance and the person disappears, of course, what do you want me to do? Definitely, anytime we get him, he’ll have to substantiate his allegations. There are a lot of false stories being circulated and it is very sad.”
Jonathan, who failed to explain why the Captain needed to validate the recording before investigations could be launched into the scandal, admitted that he has not even listened to the tape. The tape was initially dismissed by him as a fabrication since the person who secretly did the recording may have done so to achieve a particular purpose, hence manipulated the discussion.
According to the President, “I have not watched the video (it is an audio recording, not video). I said that it was a fabrication because, you see, people now, especially with the social media; we could be here and discuss issues and somebody will hack some of our voices and create a story that never happened.
“Therefore, I am not saying that a meeting in question was held or not held, but the issue of conspiring to rig, I said it was a fabrication,” he added.
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