BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – Former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh said his legal team is under instructions to revisit and review the subpoena on former President Goodluck Jonathan that is currently heating up the polity.
Following fierce public backlash over the court order, Metuh on Thursday said that the raging controversies arising from reports of the Court pronouncements and the attendant concerns thereof, made it imperative for his lawyers to re-evaluate the entire legal process.
According to the ex-PDP spokesman, “it is inconceivable and completely ridiculous for anybody to think that he would for any reason betray or surrender himself to be used against former President Goodluck Jonathan, whom he has immense respect for and served diligently, without any apologies, in and out of office.”
Metuh, who stated this while responding to accusations by the Save Ijaw Nation Group wherein they alleged that the order given by the court in his trial was negotiated by him as a means of letting him “off the hook”, asked; “To what end will I conspire with the same set of people who singled me out to be humiliated and openly handcuffed while spreading all manner of malicious stories against me, most of which they even denied outright in court while others remain completely unsubstantiated?
He said that ordinarily, the content of the charge against him in the Federal High Court should not breed any worries but for the fact that it now appears that the anti-corruption fight has shifted the burden of proof to a defendant once an allegation is made.
The ex-PDP image maker said the issue of conniving with the government against former President Goodluck Jonathan cannot be contemplated whatsoever.
Metuh further said; “The Save Ijaw Nation Group may be alarmed by successive media reports that he was ordered to be served on Tuesday with an instruction to appear the following day and subsequently given a five-day time limit; setting off a media frenzy as if the former president is needed for reasons more than a mere request by my lawyers for a corroborative evidence in my case.
“I totally concede that this is not deserving of the status, person and image of the former President especially with his contribution and sacrifices to national development and sustenance of democracy in our dear country.
“Without prejudice to all the foregoing, I accept that it was the need for corroboration of lack of mens reaon my part that led my lawyers to request for the evidence of the respected former President to assist them in proving my innocence.
“In the past 20 months I have shouldered my travails personally and without seeking to involve any other individual and/or groups in this unfortunate saga,” the former PDP spokesman said.
He also said that he habour no ill feeling or malice towards none as he believes that with time, justice will surely be done in his matter, stressing that he is completely innocent of the charge against him and therefore have no reason to negotiate with anybody to let him off a non-existent hook.
