New Telegraph

Police indict HEDA boss over Adoke’s forgery petition

Chairman of the HumanandEnvironmental Development Agenda (HEDA), Mr. Olanrewaju Suraju, has been indicted of falsehood and cyberstalking in the probe of an allegation that an e-mail and phone conversation attributed to Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke, former attorney-general of the federation, was forged. Suraju was indicted by an investigation carried out by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) monitoring team in Abuja.

 

Adoke was said to have communicated with JP Morgan, the US investment bank, in June 2011 over OPL 245 transaction between Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd, Shell and Eni. He was accused of communicating via the address of acompany owned by Aliyu Abubakar, who was also on trial in Italy.

 

The e-mail was intended to support the claim that there was corruption, alleging that Adoke and Abubakar “worked together” on the  deal. Adoke had discredited the e-mail, saying he was no longer minister as of the date it was sent and had no reason to use another person’s e-mail address.

The former AGF also debunkedclaimshehadaphone conversation with an Italian journalist in 2017 where he was said to have acknowledged that the OPL245 deal was a scam.

 

Adoke said the phone conversation was state-managed, addingthathewasonself-exile at the time and had stopped using a Nigerian line since June 2015. The former minister, through his lawyers, had petitioned the IGP requesting for investigation of the allegations levelled against him.

 

In a letter addressed to Adoke and dated September 2, Ibrahim Musa, head of IGP monitoring team, said an investigation has been conducted on the claims.

 

The police said Suraju did not verify the phone tape and emailbeforesharingonsocial media. It accusedthe HEDA chairman of falsehood, saying his act is “a calculated attempt to resort to media trial and to falsify relationship” between Adoke and Abubakar.

 

“A thorough investigation was carried out and in the course of investigation, it was evident that Mr Olarenwaju Suraju of Human and EnvironmentalDevelopment Agenda -an unregistered organisation, without verifying the authenticity of the purported telephone interview and email proceeded to use the social media handle of @ HedaAgenda on Twitter and @HedaResourceCentre on Facebook to disseminate same,” the letter reads.

 

“And when invited by the Police to substantiate his claims, he feigned sickness, jumped bail and resorted to issuing press statements maligning the Police, writing frivolous counter petitions and filing civil suits in Court against the IGP Monitoring Unit,

 

Force Headquarters, Abuja and the Police, aimed to undermine the investigation and to evade the course of justice;

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