NJC probe: Panel to summon National Security Adviser •Over alleged call logs implicating judges •Allegation, mere fabrication -Salami •As…

PRESIDENT of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Isa Salami, came face to face with his accusers; former Governors Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun State and Segun Oni of Ekiti State, on Wednesday

and the logjam created by the confrontation on the controversial call logs would now be resolved by the National Security Adviser (NSA), whose office coordinated the retrieval of the logs from four mobile telecommunications firms.

The five-man panel headed by Justice Umaru Abdullahi, probing alleged cash-for-judgment allegations in the state governorship appeal panels, reportedly resolved to get the office of the NSA to testify on the call logs and their contents, following Salami’s insistence that Oni, who was first called in to testify, could not tender the call logs since they did not originate from him.

For close to six hours, Oni and Salami were said to have engaged in a battle of wits over the admission of the call logs provided alongside the petitions as exhibits, with the panel eventually resolving it in the petitioner’s favour by taking the call logs in as exhibits.

Though the office of the NSA that provided the call logs at the instance of the panel had reportedly covered them with a letter authenticating their genuineness, Salami had reportedly through his lead counsel, Ricky Tarfa, SAN, insisted that Oni, who had been advanced a copy of the call logs by the panel, could not tender same and that only the NSA who knew their origin could do so.

Salami also reportedly stated that Oni did not disclose the content of the communication which he had with the chieftains of the Action Congress of Nigeria through which the petitioner could prove criminality against him.

Replying, Oni was said to have told the panel that what he was out to prove was the ethics of the calls, reportedly noting that what was at stake was an ethical issue, adding that he would be leaving the criminal aspect to the security agencies to pursue against those mentioned in the call logs.

Oni, according to a source at the probe panel, was said to have called the attention of the panel to the fact that none of those mentioned in the call logs saga had denied making the calls.

Nigerian Tribune further learnt that the panel also admitted, as exhibit, Salami’s interview in the Thisday issue of January 25, 2011, where Salami said that he trusted only nine justices of the Court of Appeal out of about 62 and that Lagos State government was supplying diesel to the Court of Appeal in Lagos.

Justice Clara Ogunbiyi, who sat on both Osun and Ekiti governorship appeal panels, presides over the Lagos Division of the court.
She is also being probed by the panel.

Both Oni and Oyinlola tendered the interview as exhibit.

Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Osun State chapter also disclosed on Wednesday that it would challenge Salami’s chairmanship of the Presidential Election Appeal Tribunal sitting in Abuja, noting that it was morally wrong for someone being probed to head such a body.

The party said it was going to amend its suit challenging Salami’s continued stay in office while still being probed at the next adjourned date, to accommodate its request that Salami should be disqualified from the tribunal if he would not disqualify himself.

Salami at Wednesday’s sitting reportedly threatened to walk out on the panel if those who were with the petitioners were not excused from the sitting, with Umaru reportedly assuring him that the established proceedings would be followed which would see only the petitioners, their counsel and witnesses staying back.

He also raised the issue of the panel proceedings finding their ways into the media, despite the sitting being in camera, but Umaru was said to have told him that there was no way he could control what goes into the media from the proceedings, because he had no control of the media.

Though Salami was said to have pooh-poohed the call logs supplied by Oni alongside his petition as a mere fabrication, he reportedly used some of the reported conversation in the call logs to buttress his argument that people were at liberty to call anybody on phone.

The communication expert brought by the petitioners would take his turn in the witness box today, as Oyinlola, who stepped down as a witness late into the evening yesterday, would continue his testimony today.