Lagos-based lawyer, Mr. Festus Keyamo, on Wednesday said the suspended Chairman, House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy Regime, Mr. Farouk Lawan, must resign and face criminal trial for allegedly collecting money from the Chairman of Zenon Oil, Mr. Femi Otedola, to influence his committee’s report.
Keyamo said in a statement on Wednesday that the “sequence of undisputed facts” of the scandal showed that Lawan “collected bribe purportedly on behalf of his committee to doctor his report”.
He likened the scandal to a robbery incident “which went terribly wrong”.
There has been a raging scandal involving an alleged collection of $620,000 by Lawan from Otedola, a development which has led to the airing of audio recordings of the duo’s telephone conversations about their negations and agreement on the bribe on television.
Lawan has however said the voice purportedly being portrayed to be his in the said conversation was doctored.
But Keyamo said, “Farouk Lawan must stop this dance of shame and save that House of whatever is left of its credibility by resigning from office immediately and face his criminal trial squarely. It is, indeed, himself and his hired goons that are turning this episode into a theatre of the absurd, and not the other way round.”
He wondered why Lawan refused to involve any law enforcement agency in his purported sting operation and why he only waited for the scandal to break out before taking any step.
“A few hours after collecting the dollars, Farouk Lawan stood up on the floor of the House and, instead of exposing Otedola, he was actually shielding him by convincing his colleagues to remove Otedola’s company name from the list of indicted companies in the report,” Keyamo said.
He dismissed the investigation by the House Committee on Ethics and Privileges, of the scandal as “nothing but a laughable sham, a diversionary and disgraceful enterprise with a pre-determined end, an unconstitutional and illegal exercise and Nigerians must ignore it.”
He added, “The bare-faced denial by Farouk Lawan of his voice on those tapes, and the denial of his complicity despite these overwhelming evidence, gives the clear impression that we are dealing with a hardened, unrepentant crook who is like a thief caught with his hand in the cashbox, but still claims he was only checking the color of the money.
“In Japan, such persons like Farouk Lawan would have committed what they call ‘hara-kiri’.
“In America and Europe, he would have resigned immediately from public office in shame and beg for forgiveness.
“Unfortunately, here in Nigeria, and aided by dubious hired goons, he continues to deny the obvious. What a shame!”
Punch
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Lawan should be tried but Keyamo should spare us the agony of moribound trials by not getting involved.
Bola Ige’s murderers, Comptroller General of Customs etc should readily come to mind.
I have stopped being impressed by our judicial system in this Country. So many criminals occupy sensitive positions and unless they stepped on powerful toes,
it is business as usual. Even when convicted, they escape with lighter jail terms and they are likely to spend the term in expensive private hospitals.
The Bible however says; “No matter the cooperation, sinners will not go unpunished”. We must all be prepared to meet the Lord.
Haba! Mr. Kiyamo stop being hypocritical. If your advice to Lawan Faruk to resign and face prosecution is in good faith, what stop’s you from telling president Jonathan and minister of petroleum to resign or instead, call on the national assembly to commence impeachment proceedings against the president. I am not against your advice but, we should stop giving Faruk’s bribery scandal prefference while leaving the main issue because, there most be both issue and purpose for giving any bribery. The issue is the oil subsidy money and the purpose for giving bribe even if demanded by the taker is to escape justice. Because, i think if there was no issue, there wont be purpose for demanding bribe hence nobody will be bribing anybody. My question is who has the power to sign the paper for the importation of petrol? Secondly, who sign those papers for those individuals and companies that collected fuel subsidy money? And finally, how much was earmarked for subsidy in the 2011 budget. I think these are the questions begging for answers not Faruk Lawan’s bribery scandal. Thank you.