Chairman,
Special Investigation Panel, and Assistant Director of the State Security Service,
SSS, Mr. James Ineh, yesterday told a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja that
Senator Alli Ndume released the phone number of the Attorney-General of the
Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke, to a member of the
Boko Haram, Mohammed Kodunga.
The call was aimed at threatening
Adoke to influence the decision of the court in the governorship election
petition in Borno State in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, or make
the state ungovernable.
Konduga, whom the SSS claimed released
the information, has now been convicted over terrorism charge.
Ineh, who mounted the witness box
yesterday, also said that the GSM numbers of Ndume were seized and analysed as
part of their investigation after his arrest.
Ndume was arrested for allegedly
having a link with Boko Haram Islamic sect.
But the senator had denied the
allegation in his statement to the SSS after his arrest.
He admitted that Ndume gave some
materials he obtained from the Boko Haram sect to the Vice- President, Namadi
Sambo, and SSS director- general as a member of the Presidential Committee on
Security Challenges in the North-East.
“We investigated his claim by using
our tradecraft. We did not have any audience with the Vice-President but we
investigated
“His phones were sent to experts for
analysis and after the phones were analysed, we did not tell him about our
findings. He was not there when the analyses were made
“He (Kodunga) did not say that the
accused has been assisting the sect financially. We did not find anything
incriminating on Ndume when we searched his house.
“We did not invite any member of the
committee to verify the claim of the accused person in his statement.
“Some of the materials we took from
his house were laptops, GSM phones, international passport and other things,”
he said.
Ineh said that he could not recall if
there was a letter written to the Inspector- General of Police by Ndume for protection
and another suggesting to the IGP on the way out of Boko Haram crisis.
Another Senator from the state, Ahmed
Zanna, has also been accused of “working” for the Boko Haram sect.
The senator is already under
investigation for his alleged link with the sect even as a Boko Haram kingpin,
Shuaibu Mohammed Bama, was allegedly arrested in his house by the Joint Task
Force, JTF, in Borno State last week.
Senator Zanna, after the JTF
accusation, had said that although Bama was his nephew, the arrest did not take
place in his home, adding that he was arrested in the home of the former
governor.
“Since he was not arrested in my
house, they should go and investigate his relationship with those they were
arrested,” he said.
There has been accusation and counter-
accusation between Senator Zanna and the former governor of the state, Ali Modu
Sheriff.
Sheriff had described Zanna as a
“drowning man” who must be fully investigated.
“Senator Zanna’s inconsistencies in
trying to defend himself appeared to be a clear indication of a sinking man’s
desperate attempt to hang himself on anything available to save his neck. If
not so, what would his nephew be doing in the so-called house of Senator Ali
Sheriff, the man he said was his political rival?”
The ex-governor said Senator Zanna
had “obvious involvement with Boko Haram, given his past antecedent where
people finger him as illegal importer of arms via his Hajj-by-road fame.”