The $620,000 bribery scandal
involving a federal legislator, Farouk Lawan and businessman, Femi Otedola, has
entered a new phase with Otedola asking a court to order Lawan and three others
to pay him N250bn in damages.
The suit coincides with petitions to
the Inspector-General of Police by Lawan’s lawyers demanding a face-to-face
confrontation between the lawmaker and the businessman.
The amount, Otedola says, will
compensate him for the loss of patronage he has suffered as a result of an
alleged intimidation by the National Assembly.
Listed as defendants in the suit
number FCT /3839/2012 and filed on June 28, 2012 at the Abuja High Court, are
Lawan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal; the
National Assembly and its Clerk.
There had been a raging scandal in
which Otedola, who is the Chairman of Zenon Oil and Gas Limited, claimed that
he paid $620,000 as bribe to Lawan, the suspended Chairman of the House Ad hoc
Committee that probed the management of fuel subsidy regime in the country.
While Otedola said that he paid the
bribe under pressure, Lawan claimed that he obtained the bribe in order to
expose the businessman.
The businessman’s company which had
been removed from the list of subsidy thieves on the request of Lawan has,
however, been re-listed by the House following the outbreak of the bribery
scandal.
Otedola, who is suing along with
Zenon as the first plaintiff, said in his 28-paragraph statement of claim that
the re-listing of Zenon on the list of indicted companies was an act of
conspiracy.
He claimed that the alleged
conspiracy by both Tambuwal and the National Assembly was calculated to
embarrass him and his company.
In his statement of claim, Otedola
states, “Notwithstanding the on-going Police investigations and the first
defendant’s admission of receiving money from the second plaintiff, the second
and fourth defendants conspired to relist the name of the first plaintiff to
the list of indicted companies, to embarrass the plaintiffs and their corporate
and business image.
“The plaintiffs shall contend at
trial that the conspiracy by the second and fourth defendants (Tambuwal and the
National Assembly respectively) to re-list the name of the first plaintiff on
the list of companies indicted by the ad-hoc committee is without basis given
that the committee’s finding was arrived at without proper verification of
documents submitted by the plaintiffs to aid their enquiry.”
Otedola narrated how Lawan allegedly
demanded $3m bribe in the course of the committee’s investigation and how he
made several other intimidating calls that Zenon would be included on the list
of indicted companies if he failed to comply.
He said the lawmaker did not relent
in his demand for the bribe despite telling him that there was no basis for
Zenon to be indicted by the committee.
He added that he later took to the
advice of some unnamed security agencies which asked him to play along with
Lawan.
He states further, “In the course of
carrying out his assignment, the first defendant (Lawan) as head of the ad hoc
committee set up by the second and third defendants contacted the second
plaintiff (Otedola) and informed him that the first plaintiff ( Zenon) was
going to be indicted by the ad hoc committee for purchasing foreign exchange
from the Central Bank of Nigeria without importing petroleum products unless
the plaintiff parted with a bribe of $3m.
“The first defendant continued to
make harassing phone calls to the second plaintiff calculated at intimidating
the plaintiffs to meet the unlawful demand of the first defendant for bribe
“The second plaintiff faced with the
first defendant’s unrelenting barrage of intimidating calls became distressed
and contacted the security agencies to report the first defendant’s conduct
“The plaintiffs were advised by the
security agencies to play along and hand over marked notes to the first
defendant and his cohorts for the purpose of gathering evidence of their
nefarious activities.”
In the purported sting operation,
Otedola states that out of the $620,000 bribe, $500,000 was taken personally by
Lawan on April 24, and that $120,000 was handed over to the clerk of the
committee, Boniface Emenalo.
He also says that he would produce
“all call logs and audio-visual records of conversation and/or meetings” held
with Lawan to prove his case.
He states, “On April 24, 2012, the
sum of $500,00 was handed over to the first defendant by the second plaintiff.
“At the request of the first
defendant, a further sum of $120, 000 was handed over to Boniface Emenalo by
the second defendant.
“On the morning of the April 24, 2012,
the first defendant persisted in making intimidating phone calls to the
plaintiffs harassing them to pay up the balance of $2.380m.
“As a result of the distress caused
to the plaintiffs by the first defendant’s persistent calls, the plaintiffs
reported the matter to the police which invited the first defendant and the
plaintiffs for investigations.”
Otedola, dissatisfied with the
reappearance of Zenon on the list of indicted companies, has therefore made the
claims against the defendants “jointly and severally”,
“The sum of N100 billion against the
defendants as general damages for the acts of intimidation; loss of goodwill
and patronage, occasioned by the acts of the defendants; and a separate “sum of
N150 billion against the defendants as exemplary damages for their oppressive
and arbitrary action.”
He states, “The action and conduct of
the defendants were oppressive and arbitrary and thereby also resulting to the
plaintiffs suffering substantial loss to their reputation, goodwill and
business.”
Hearing date has not been fixed for
the case and it has not been assigned to any judge.
In a reaction on Sunday, the House
said that it was ready for Otedola and would assemble a legal team to meet him
in court.
However, it clarified that no court
summons had been served on it as at Sunday (yesterday).
The Chairman, House Committee on
Media, Public Affairs, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, noted that as a Nigerian, Otedola
was free to express his views or take action on any issues he strongly
disapproves of.
“He is free to go to court; he is a
Nigerian. We are ready for him and he will hear from us when we receive account
summons.
“However, as we speak, I am not aware of any court
action taken against the House. This is weekend; but he will hear from us when
we get the summons”, Mohammed added