Hon. Farouk Lawan, the man at the center of the ‘caught on camera bribe’ now claims that he only collected the bribe to use as evidence against the oil cabal but his colleagues are not buying his story because he waited until he was exposed to make the claim and did not inform any member if the house until the security services blew the lid of the deal.
Also, more details are emerging as to what transpired. The whole saga began after the SSS got a tip that the House Adhoc Committee probing the Fuel Subsidy regime had been receiving bribes from different quarters to influence their report and sex it up to embarrass the government.
Investigations then commenced which established the truth of the matter. At this point a plot was hatched to entrap the chief bribe taker, which was the head if the commitee, Farouk Lawan.
A camera concealed in a pen was handed over to Femi Otedola, CEO of Zenon Oil, who had a meeting with Farouk Lawan whbe negotiated a $3 Million dollar bribe with Otedola and collected a down payment of $600K.
Lawan then kept quiet and concealed receipt of the money from all and sundry and after the report was released he approached Otedola to collect the balance of his money. It is known that Lawan plans tocontest for Kano State governor in 2015 and needs a financial war chest for the contest.
However, when the scandal broke, Lawan in an attempt to turn the case against him approached a member of the House’s Committee on Narcotics and Financial Crimes to appeal to them to tender the money he collected on-camera as evidence of an attempt to bribe him, but the committee members refused to be used claiming that they could only have agreed had Lawan come to them before the scandal blew open.
Meanwhile, Lawan’s commitee members have expressed disappointment in the fact that Lawan could collect such a huge sum without putting them in the picture.
In related news, the House Spokesman, Hon. Zakari Muhammad, has issued a statement washing the hands of the House of the Farouk Lawan bribery and stating that the House will not cover up anybody’s alleged crime and would allow the rule of law to run its course.
The allegation of the bribery blew open after former President Olusegun Obasanjo alleged that there were thieves and armed robbers in the National Assembly and state legislative houses, and the Speaker of the House Hon. Aminu Tambuwal travelled to the former president’s Ota residence to seek audience with him over the statement.
It was gathered that Obasanjo showed Tambuwal a certain video recording which showed the committee member collecting a huge amount of foreign currency ( said to be $600,000) from some oil company officials.
Tambuwal was said to have been rudely shocked by the video Obasanjo showed him to justify why he made his controversial allegation against the lawmakers.
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