Curious Twist

 

 

By Ademola Adegbamigbe

 

 

There is now a savage twist in the governorship war between Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun State and his Action Congress, AC, challenger, Engineer Rauf Aregbesola. As a retrial of Aregbesola’s petition against Oyinlola approaches, the Inspector-General of Police, Mike Okiro, has alleged that the police security report on elecoral violence and fraud in Osun which, (like the late Adrian Forty’s forensic report), is pivotal to the case, was forged by Aregbesola.

 

On 1 April, 2009, Oyinlola wrote a letter to Okiro, to authenticate the purported report and release the author, one CSP Ahmed Mohammed, “to be a witness whenever the retrial of the case commenced at Osogbo”. In his response, dated 8 April 2009, Okiro declared that the purported “Final Security Report” did not emanate from the Nigeria Police Force. He further stated that the letter head “used by the author was forged, and that the reference No. CL2341 reflected on the report did not exist in the Nigeria Police files”.

The IGP claimed that the report did not reflect the style of police intelligence report, while the authors of the report, DSP Odiga Ame J. and CSP Ahmed Mohammed “are not serving members of the Nigeria Police Force”. He concluded that the report did not emanate from “B” department (Operations) of the Nigeria Police Force. For this, Alhaji Tajudeen Oladipo, PDP’s National Vice-Chairman, South-West and Pastor Popoola Olatunji, Osun State Chairman of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties, CNPP, called for Aregbesola’s trial. However, in a statement issued by AC, entitled: “Oyinlola and Okiro’s Web of Lies,” Aregesola wondered why it took Okiro about a year before coming out to disclaim the report despite the fact that it was part of a petition sent to him in May 2008, which was duly acknowledged by his office.

 The statement which was jointly signed by the Osun State Chairman of AC, Alhaji Moshood Adeoti and Secretary, Prince Gboyega Famodun, said: “It is also on record that the Certified True Copy of the Police Report was tendered in the case of Aregbesola & Ors v Oyinlola & Ors at the Osun State Governorship Tribunal on 15 May 2008 and the only objection raised to the admissibility of the document was that it was not a public document as it was marked ‘Secret’.” Oyinlola and his henchmen, AC argued, knew that the document was genuine and they only sought to protect its secrecy while in court. They did not want the court to look at the document as it would put them all in trouble. “It was this contention that was rejected by the Court of Appeal on March 30, 2009. Now that the court has looked at the document, Oyinlola and his man, Okiro, have turned around to say that the document is fake,” AC maintained.That day, Justice Victor Omage who presided at the Appeal Tribunal in Ibadan ruled that the tribunal erred in law when it dismissed the petition of Aregbesola on July 15 last year. Omage added: “There was no basis for the rejection of many of the evidence sought to be tendered by Aregbesola in support of his case, especially the police final security report on the vote held on April 14, 2007.” Aregbesola wanted to use the police and forensic reports to prove elecoral fraud in Atakumosa, Ayedade, Boluwaduro, Boripe, Ede, Ife Central, Ife East, Ife South, Ifedayo, Isokan, Odo-Otin, and Ola-Oluwa local councils in Osun State. Omage maintained that the police final report is a public document, going by Section 114(1) and (2) of the Documents Act.

The party added that the Inspector-General of Police and the Osun State Commissioner of Police were duly represented by the Attorney-General of Osun State, an appointee of Oyinlola, throughout the proceedings at the tribunal and the course of hearing in the Court of Appeal. The million dollar question, in the words of AC, is whether the said counsel to the Inspector- General never deemed it fit to ascertain the veracity and existence of the Police Report from his client, the IGP, after the document was tendered at the Court and when the document was in contention at the Court of Appeal. “How credible can it be that a document attacked by Oyinlola’s lawyer as secret document suddenly became fake and forged document one year later?” AC argued.

The party added that the police report that Oyinlola and Okiro are now challenging as fake and a forgery was first published in the 10 March, 2008, edition of TheNEWS magazine. This magazine is, without doubt, a widely circulated news publication and thus, the question, as AC put it, is whether Oyinlola or the Police could say that they had not read the publication before 1 April, 2009, when the purported letter of Oyinlola was written to Okiro calling for verification of the authenticity of the said police report. Moreover, Aregbesola wrote a petition dated 6 May 2008 to Okiro and this was duly acknowledged as received on 9 May, 2008 by the office of the Inspector-General of Police. In the letter, Aregbesola drew the attention of Okiro to the report of the Police on the election, especially in paragraph ii on page 6 of the letter thus:

“ii. During the election, the violence perpetrated by Oyinlola-led PDP were well documented by the Independent Police team sent by the Office of the IGP (See TheNEWS, March 10, 2008, copy attached and marked Appendix B)”.A copy of this letter, AC said, was published on page 30 of The Nation of Monday, 23 June 2008. The party claimed that in a petition dated 5 May 2008, written by the Osun State chapter of AC to Okiro and captioned: “Their Blood Cries Out,” which was duly acknowledged as received on 9 May 2008 by the office of the Inspector-General of Police, the attention of Okiro was drawn to the Police Report on page 2 of the said letter as follows:”It therefore gladdens our hearts when we stumbled on the report of the Security Team sent by the “B” Department of your office to monitor the 2007 General Elections as published by TheNEWS Magazine of Sunday 10th March, 2008.”

AC therefore wondered how credible can it be for the Inspector-General of Police who received the above letters about a year ago to now claim in April, 2009 that there was no such Police Report? Analysts have also wondered why Oyinlola clings to the police report as if it is the only ground upon which he lost the case.The other evidence is the forensic report. Although Adrian Forty, the expert, is dead, Aregbesola’s team say this would not affect the case because the exercise was conducted by more than 51 people and witnessed by PDP, INEC and AC staff.

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