Kamarudeen Ogundele, Chukwudi Akasike, Adelani Adepegba
and Olaleye Aluko
The police panel, probing the violence
that rocked the December 10, 2016, legislative rerun in Rivers State,
may treat the telephone conversation between Governor Nyesom Wike and
his Ekiti State counterpart, Ayodele Fayose, as an additional exhibit in
the investigation.
It was gathered on Thursday in Abuja
that the panel, set up by the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim
Idris, would also conduct a forensic audio analysis of the audio to
establish the roles played by Wike in the violence that marred the polls
in which two police officers were beheaded and their heads thrown into a
river.
A source familiar with the ongoing probe
stated that the audio of the conversation between Wike and Fayose,
which was leaked online on Thursday, was of interest to the panel
members.
He said, “The panel is definitely
interested in the new audio because it may help investigators to
identify the masterminds of the violence that marred the election. It
may be presented to the experts carrying out the forensic analysis on
the previous audio tape to see how they all relate together.”
The Force spokesman, Donald Awunah,
could not be reached for comment as he did not respond to calls to his
mobile on Thursday while he had yet to respond to an SMS as of the time
of filing this report.
In the telephone call, Fayose
congratulated Wike on the Peoples Democratic Party victory in the rerun
polls, praising the Rivers State governor for his courage in daring the
soldiers on election duty to visit a collation centre during the polls.
Wike, in his response, dismissed the military, saying, the “Nigerian Army does not exist again now.”
The acting Director, Army Public
Relations, Brig. Gen. Sani Usman, however, dismissed the mockery of the
soldiers in the audio tape.
“Both know that the Nigerian Army exists,” he replied in a text message.
But the Ekiti State Governor, in his
reaction to the leaked audio, advised President Muhammadu Buhari to
resign because he had failed Nigerians who voted him into power.
He said this in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, on Thursday.
Explaining that the exchanged rate was
now $1 to N500 under Buhari, Fayose lamented that there “is
unprecedented hunger in the land”.
“It is better for the President to
resign because he appears not to have the capacity for positivity. If
all the presidents that ruled before Buhari had behaved like he is
behaving now, he himself will be in jail,” he said.
He accused the Department of State
Services of recording telephone conversations of Nigerians perceived as
critics of Buhari-led All Progressives Congress government.
Specifically, he accused the DSS of editing the conversations and leaking same to Sahara Reporters, which according to him, has now become the official propaganda platform of the Federal Government.
Fayose, who said he was not bothered by
the new audio clip, advised the Federal Government to provide food for
Nigerians and save the lives of those that were being killed in Southern
Kaduna and other places, “rather than sitting down and be monitoring
peoples phones.”
The governor stated, “If the President
and his hatchet men in the DSS, EFCC and other Federal Government’s
agencies do not know what to do other than to record phone conversations
of their perceived political foes, they should just resign and save the
country from this harrowing experience.”
He alleged that the DSS recorded telephone conversations of Nigerians and leaking them to Sahara Reporters.
He described the alleged trend as the
height of political rascality, manipulation, oppression, suppression and
irresponsibility by agents of the Federal Government that were trying
so hard to cover up the crimes they perpetrated against the people of
Rivers State.
“They should even go beyond tapping of
my lines and come to live with me in Ekiti Government House so that they
can do per seconds live recordings of whatever I say because in the
year 2017, by the grace of God, I will still say more without apology,”
he said.
Fayose said for the first time since
democracy returned to the country in 1999, Nigerians were celebrating
Christmas and the New Year with hunger and sufferings beyond measure.
He added, “Rather than tackling hunger
and the country’s economic woes, they have embarked on diversionary
tactics with irrelevant stories of governors Wike and Fayose’s phone
conversations, governors who do not bear arms and have no control over
any security apparatus.
“I knew it before now that telephone
conversations of prominent Nigerians, especially National Assembly
members and opposition figures are being monitored, but I have remained
unperturbed in my resolve to play my roles in rescuing Nigeria from the
jaws of tyranny, which the present APC Federal Government represents.”
Also, the Rivers State Commissioner for
Information, Dr. Austin Tam-George, told one of our correspondents in a
telephone interview that the state government would no longer dignify
SaharaReporters with any response.
“I am sorry, but the state government will no longer dignify Saharareporters with any more response,” Tam-George said.
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