As the accusations and counter-accusations about bribery in the House of Representatives grow, the Public Interest Lawyers League (PILL) has called on the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, to resign his position in order to allow for proper investigation into the activities of some committees of the House. It also wants wealthy oil baron Femi Otedola to be arrested.
PILL said in a statement signed by its President, Abdul Mahmud, and its General Secretary, Kelvin Okoro, that information available to it suggests that the Speaker was informed of the activities of the Ad hoc committee chair, Farouk Lawan, one week before the report was released, a fact that is now public knowledge.
“It is also in the public domain that Aminu Tambuwal confronted Farouk Lawan with the video clip of his criminal misdemeanor,” the group said. “Lawan is reported to have owned up, partly to a certain sum and not the bribe sums in full. However, further revelations have forced Lawan’s hands and he has since accepted receiving the sum of five hundred thousand dollars from Femi Otedola.”
Detailing the bribery story and how it was caught on camera, PILL identified something sinister about the way the network of corruption works in the House of Representatives.
Detailing the bribery story and how it was caught on camera, PILL identified something sinister about the way the network of corruption works in the House of Representatives.
“Farouk Lawan is merely the face, disgraced by the outcome of his own perfidious adventure, of an orchestrated network of members who work the committee system to intimidate and harass sections of our polity for bribes,” it said. “The committee system feeds into the culture of settlement and patronage promoted by the leadership of the House.”
In the House system, PILL said, “No one becomes chairman, or vice chairman and, or a member of a juicy committee if that individual has no capacity to deliver the perfidious. To deliver means to make monetary returns to the Speaker.”
Asking questions about what Speaker Tambuwal knew, when he knew it and what he did with what he knew, PILL was of the view that the Speaker did nothing. “Farouk Lawan was the Speaker’s principal pick to head the Ad hoc committee, and the Speaker’s decision was either borne out of a warped commitment to our country or he misjudged his men. Public Interest Lawyers League thinks it is neither. He protected his men.”
Exploring how members of the committee began shopping for bribes the moment the Ad hoc committee commenced its work, PILL said Farouk Lawan busied himself reaching out to oil marketers using his frontman, Jerry Alagboso.
It called for the immediate arrest of Jerry Alagboso, Farouk Lawan, Boniface Emenalo and other members of the ad hoc committee, and for commencement of the of investigation into the proceedings of the committee to determine the extent of culpability of its individual members.
PILL also demanded the arrest of Femi Otedola and Captain Iheanacho, the former Minister of the Interior at whose home Farouk Lawan showed up at 1:20 a.m. on April 18 to collect a bribe, so as to determine the extent of their criminal complicity in the bribe saga.
Our sources say that Otedola this morning appeared before the Special Task Force looking into the bribery mess. Otedola says he gave $620.000 in bribes, $500,000 in cash to Hon. Farouk Lawan, and $120,000 in two installments of $20,000 and $100,000 to Boniface Emenalo, the Secretary of the committee.
He says the money belonged to the State Security Service which he was working with as he faced the bribe demands.
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