The embattled House of Representatives Committee Chairman on Fuel Subsidy, Farouk Lawan’s lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN) yesterday called for a forensic expert to prove the audio tape of the $620,000 bribe transaction between his client and the Chairman of Zenon Oil, Mr. Femi Otedola.
The lawyer said, the audio bribe transaction which is already on internet, does not proved the real voice his client, claiming that Lawan’s voice was doctored and therefore can never be accepted as an evidence that Lawan took a bribe in any court of law.
Ozekhome charged Otedola to released the entire audio-visual and the complete video for Nigerians to watch.
In a statement issued by the lawyer said: “We are counsel to Farouk Lawan. He has drawn our attention to an audio visual piece of news aired on Channels Television which purported to be a conversation between Femi Otedola and our client, Mr Farouk Lawan.
“We have listened to and watched the audio with our client, Mr Farouk Lawan. On his instructions, we hereby state that the audio is infertile, vague, puerile and inadmissible in evidence by any Court Of Law or Tribunal.
“Professionally, Channels did make the vital point that the audio was “purported to be their voices”. One simple question here: where is the visual of the audio?
“Recall that Otedola had told the whole world that he used the SSS to carry out a so called “Sting Operation”, which showed Farouk Lawan not only pocketing the sum of $500,000, but also putting some under his cap, in Otedola’s Lagos home.
“On Farouk’s instructions, we debunked this allegation and challenged Otedola or the Police and the SSS to produce this complete audio video, unedited and undoctored.
“Otedola had the opportunity of doing this through Channels TV. But he did not. Rather, he brought highly doctored, manipulated and incomprehensible voices purported to be his and Lawan’s.
“He will certainly require forensic evidence to prove this to be true in this highly technologised world of manipulative evidence that can easily turn a man into a woman. Certainly, the audio was a sorry anti-climax to what Nigerians had been expecting.
“Even at that, let us take the audio ‘evidence’ itself for whatever it is worth. The conversation started somewhere in the middle, not from the beginning and ended abruptly.
“Our client hereby still challenges Otedola to air the entire audio visual and also the complete video for Nigerians to see the setting and environment in which the alleged bribe took place, who said what, to whom and for what.
“Secondly, our client believes that the entire footage is devilish, satanic, luciferous, mischievous and completely taken out of context. Even then the audio shows that it is Otedola offering to pay the balance of the alleged bribe of $2.5million, not Farouk Lawan”
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