Mike Ozekhome, counsel to Farouk Lawan, has dismissed the audio recording of a purported conversation between Lawan and Zenon Oil boss, Femi Otedola, aired on Channels TV today as “nothing but a caricature”.
Ozekhome, SAN, said: “What we saw on Channels Television was nothing but a caricature, a very infantile, very puerile, highly-edited, terribly doctored audio statement purported to be the voices of Mr. Femi Otedola and Mr. Farouk Lawan”.
Ozekhome said the audio recording, exclusively obtained and aired today by the television station, was false.
In the audio recording, featured the voices, purportedly that of Farouk Lawan and oil magnate Otedola as they decided on how best to transfer $2.5 million to Lawan, the remainder of the $3 million bribe which Otedola claims was demanded of him.
In the audio recording of the incriminating phone conversation, a voice suspected to be that of Lawan’s could be heard telling Otedola, the other person heard in the conversation, to transfer the $2.5 million through a third party, a man named TJ.
Ozekhome who spoke with Channels said “The first point I want to make on behalf of Mr. Farouk Lawan, which he instructed me to make, is that our challenge remains. And the challenge is that either Mr. Femi Otedola or the SSS or the police should produce the full unedited and undoctored audio visual video of his encounter with Mr. Femi Otedola,”
Though the audio recording was of a phone conversation, Lawan’s lawyer demanded that his client’s accusers produce a visual component to the audio recording.
Ozekhome who also faulted the valisity of a video of Lawan allegedly receiving some bribe money, said “The bribe that was allegedly given, where was it given, what was the setting,” the counsel said, adding that “Mr. Lawan maintains that the first $250,000 he was given, which was taken as an agent provacateur to provoke Mr. Femi Otedola to come out and bribe, took place at Protea Hotel in Apo, Abuja.”
This he said was contrary to Otedola’s claim that the bribery transaction had taken place at his Lagos residence.
He reiterated his camp’s belief that the audio recording, which he said was full of ellipses, was doctored and not evidence of any wrongdoing on his client’s part.
“The statement itself did not start from the beginning. It started suddenly from nowhere,” Ozokhome said of the audio recording. “It also ended abruptly when he was talking of the telephone number of one TJ.”
The counsel demanded to know what was said before and after the recording.
“Nigerians are interested in a comprehensive, unedited, undoctored, unmanipulated audio visual CD of the entire transaction,” he said.