A source privy to the issue had also noted that Suraju never forged any documents against the former Minister.
The facts in the report released by the Nigerian Police Force on its investigation on alleged falsehood against a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke were misrepresented, SaharaReporters has learnt.
An online medium had recently reported that chairman of anti-corruption group, Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), Olanrewaju Suraju, was indicted of falsehood in the probe of an allegation that an e-mail and phone conversation attributed to Adoke was forged.
HEDA had made public an email sent by Adoke to JP Morgan Chase, seeking to transfer over $1billion from government account, after he had left office.
According to the organisation, although the defendants in the trial were acquitted, the ruling indicted the former Minister who was not on the charge list.
Following the development, Adoke petitioned the police, accusing Suraj and HEDA of circulating fabricated evidence against him to unduly incriminate him in the multi-million dollars scandal.
Specifically, Adoke’s lawyer Kanu Agabi, SAN, wrote a petition to Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) on 5 February 2021 stating, “The individuals who initiated the petition, investigations and the criminal trial at the court of Milan have engaged in acts of forgery of the email document dated 21 June 2011.”
Agabi’s petition, which was officially received by the IGP on 10 February 2021, also stated that “the persons or organisations behind these forgeries are the ones that authored the petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), demanding the investigation of the OPL 245 Resolution Agreement.”[story_link align="left"]99254[/story_link]
While an investigation into the case was still ongoing, a two-page report said to have emanated from the Inspector General of Police Monitoring Unit headed by one ACP Ibrahim Musa surfaced online where it was alleged that Suraj circulated false information against Adoke via his organisation’s social media accounts without verifying its authenticity.
However, contrary to the reported claim of the IGP Monitoring Unit that the email in question emanated from a Ismail Aliyu who described himself as a representative of Federal Ministry of Finance, SaharaReporters can authoritatively confirm that the email in question originated from [email protected] and signed off by Adoke.
“The position by the IGP unit, like the contradicted claim of HEDA's none registration, undermines the credibility of its supposed investigation and integrity of the report,” a police source told SaharaReporters.
SaharaReporters had also on September 21 reported that the HEDA boss, Suraju, was never indicted in the report released by the police on its investigation into alleged forgery of documents involving Adoke.[story_link align="left"]99482[/story_link]
According to a police report obtained by SaharaReporters, Suraju was not found guilty of forging any documents against Adoke.
A source privy to the issue had also noted that Suraju never forged any documents against the former Minister.
“This report never indicted Lanre Suraju for forgery, because he never forged any documents,” the source noted.
Adoke, one of those the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting for alleged fraud in connection with the OPL 245 saga, popularly referred to as the Malabu scandal, had petitioned the police accusing some unnamed persons of circulating fabricated evidence against him to unduly incriminating him.
The former Attorney-General said an email submitted to a court in Italy was never written by him as claimed just like the tape of a purported interview he granted an Italian journalist.
Adoke asked the police to help uncover those who manufactured those pieces of evidence and bring them to book.