The police have
recommended that MTN Nigeria Limited be prosecuted for deliberately suppressing
information that some Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) leaders were in
communication with the suspended President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo
Salami.
The police, in a
report dated February 8, 2013 and signed by Ali
Amodu, Commissioner of Police, X Squad, said an investigation revealed that
there was communication between Salami and the ACN leaders while he was
presiding over an election petition appeal filed by the party over the 2007
governorship election dispute in Osun State.
The report followed an investigation into a
petition to the police by a former Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola,
wherein he alleged that Salami had an unholy relationship with the ACN leaders
that influenced his judgment in the dispute between the ACN as well as Oyinlola
and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Oyinlola, in the petition, accused MTN of
conspiracy, forgery and perversion of the course of justice.
In the report, a copy of which was obtained by
THISDAY, the police established that the Call Data Records (CDR) submitted to
the National Judicial Council (NJC) to establish the fact that Salami
communicated with the ACN bigwigs while presiding over the election petition
appeal that removed Oyinlola from office was inadequate and did not properly
reveal all the communication between the two parties.
The report quoted MTN as admitting not providing
all the CDRs requested by the NJC but explained that it could not produce all
the call logs due to lack of storage capacity.
Excerpts from the report read: “That GSM no
08034010700 belonging to Tunji Ijaya appeared to have been used as a link
between GSM nos. 0803401111 (Lai Rauf Mohammed) 08062240104, 08034240000 (Bola
Tinubu) and GSM no. 08034004887 belonging to Justice Ayo Salami as there was
exchange of calls between Justice Salami and Tunji Ijaya in one hand and Tunji
Ijaya with the other mentioned on the other hand.
“The exchange of phone calls spanned between
September, 2010 to April, 2011.
“From the available CDRs, there is evidence of
communication between Justice Salami and Tunji Ijaya who also communicated with
most of the questioned GSM lines.
“The details and contents of the calls are not
known due to the fact that MTN has not extracted voice and text messages on the
lines on ground of legal limitations. They claimed there is no law empowering
them to provide voice and text messages of their subscribers to security
agencies.
“A legal advice received from Legal Section of
the D Department, Force Criminal Investigation, Abuja dated 8th February, 2013,
opined that MTN Nigeria should be prosecuted for an attempt to suppress
evidence in this case as provided by Section 167(8) of the Evidence Act.”
Oyinlola’s petition to the police was premised on
MTN call logs obtained by Area G Police Station in Ogba, Lagos, which indicated
the existence of communication between Salami’s GSM No 08034004887 with
08034010700, 08078092850 and 08034240000, which were said to belong to the top
ACN members.
Oyinlola had told the police that when he reported
the issue of the unholy relationship between Salami and the ACN chieftains to
NJC, the council obtained the call logs from MTN through the State Security
Service (SSS) and the National Security Adviser (NSA) but that MTN submitted
incomplete call logs to the SSS and the NSA and held back communication which
were crucial to prove the existence of unholy alliance between the two parties.
He said the call logs submitted to the NJC did not
cover the required period and that the CDRs did not contain incoming calls.
The police during their investigation retrieved the
CDRs obtained from MTN by the Area G Police Division.
They also collected the CDRs given to the NJC by
the SSS and the NSA.
The report states: “Requests were made to the
MTN to furnish the detail particulars of the subscribers of the listed GSM
numbers and they responded as follows: 08034004887 belongs to Justice Salami;
08034240000 belongs to Bola Tinubu and 08034010700 belongs to Tunji
Ijaiya.”
The report stated that MTN admitted submitting
incomplete calls log but said that it was based on what the company’s storage
capacity permitted.
In a cautioned response to the allegation of
suppressing vital communication between Salami and ACN leaders, MTN General
Manager (Commercial Legal Department), Oghenerumi Rotimi, said that the company
maintained high ethical standards.
She explained that MTN was governed by code of
consumer practice as approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)
to provide CDRs for a period of three months.
According to her, MTN can only keep call logs for
three months due to the company’s storage capacity owing to its teeming
subscribers of about 40 million and huge requests made by security agents.
An MTN technical staff member, Mr. Mathew Okoromi,
also gave evidence before the police.
In his response to the allegation that MTN failed
to supply CDRs between September 1, 2010 and January 31, 2011 to the NSA and
the SSS when requested, he said SSS applied for call logs for 240 days, while
NSA’s application covered 247 days.
According to him, this is above the telecoms
giant’s storage capacity which is programmed to supply CDR for 90 days only.
Source: Thisday
