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Following the receipt of a petition form you dated 15th March, 2012 and addressed to the Honourable Minister of Police Affairs, Abuja. The IGP through letter no. CR:3000/IGP.SEC/ABJ/VOL.86/658 dated 31st May, 2012, directed this office to investigate the matter and report.
2. The crux of the matter is the allegation by the petitioner that Hon. Justice Salami had an unholy relationship that influenced his judgment when he was presiding over their Governorship election petition matter that involved the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the petitioner together with his party the PDP. The allegation was premised on MTN call logs obtained by Area “G” Ogba that indicated the existence of communication between Hon. Justice Salami's GSM no. 08034004887with 08034010700, 08078092850 and 08034240000 all belonging to ACN members. The petitioner further alleged that when he reported the matter to the NJC, they obtained call logs through the SSS and NSA. When the call logs were examined, it was discovered that they were incomplete since it did not cover the required period and the CDR did not contain incoming calls. The disreputable conduct, the petitioner believe was deliberately made.
3. The CDR'S obtained by area 'G' Ogba Lagos were retrieved. Similarly, the CDR'S obtained by the NJC through the SSS and the NSA together with the flash drive were retrieved for further investigation. Requests were made to MTN to furnish the detail particulars of the subscribers of the listed GSM numbers and they responded as follows:
a. 08034004887 belong to Justice Isa Ayo Salami, OFR.
b. 08034240000 belong to Bola Tinubu.
c. 08034010700 belong to Tunji Ijaiya.
A letter of inquiry was addressed to NCC on the mandatory duration for Service Providers to furnish CDR on demand by Security Sgencies. In its response dated August 22, 2012, the NCC averred that a period of three months duration was approved for the provision of customers' data namely; Call Data Records (CDR) and telephone bills relating to time period of up to 3 months upon request.
4. In her cautioned response to the allegation, Oghenerumi Rotimi, General Manager (Commercial Legal Department) of MTN Nigeria argued that MTN is a company that has high ethical and institutionalised ethical practices amongst its employees and is governed by high corporate governance standard; therefore MTN will not doctor CDRs nor any other document that emanates from it. She explained further that MTN is governed by code of consumer practice (as approved by the NCC) to provide CDR for a period of three months. This decision is because of the organisation's storage capacity vis-à-vis its teeming subscribers of about forty million and the huge request made by security agents. However, where a line has very light transactions it may be possible to get CDR for more than three months. She added that storage is determined by archival capacity and that when the messages exceed the available capacity they are automatically deleted. She added that MTN can only print what a line generates, if there are only incoming calls to a line only such calls will be generated in the CDR. She averred that MTN is not legally bound to provide voice/text message, as the National Assembly is yet to pass the bill. She however, promised to produce MTN technical staff to give further details on her averments and to ascertain the genuineness or otherwise of the two sets of CDRs being investigated.
5. The technical staff Mr. Mathew Okoromi, a Senior Subscriber Fraud Analyst of the technical department reported on 13/06/2012 and 20/06/2012. He explained that when the legal department receives a CDR request it passes same to them and the extract the required information and pass same back to the legal department for onward delivery to the organisation that made the request. He, having studied and compared the CDR given to Area 'G' (Ogba. Lagos command) confirmed that they are substantially the same with the ones in their records. The CDR is therefore genuine. He however could not compare the CDR given to the NSA and the SSS with their records because he was informed that the NSA and the SSS were given the CDR in soft copy which was not saved. He disclosed that having studied the hard copies of the CDR the Police obtained from the NSA and the SS he discovered that the contained incoming and outgoing calls. He added that, the key highlight of the CDR is the International Mobile Identification (IMEI).
6. On the allegation that the MTN failed to supply CDR between 1st September, 2010 and 31st January, 2011 to the NSA and the SSS when requested, Okoromi explained that the SSS applied for the CDR on 21/04/2011 which had cumulative period of 240 days, while the NSA applied for the CDR on 27/04/2011 a period of 247 days. According to him this is above their storage capacity which is programmed to supply CDR for 90 days only. They therefore supplied the two organizations with CDRs that their capacity of 90 days could accommodate. This according to MTN is in line with their agreement with the NCC.
7. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS:
Investigation into the matter has so far revealed the following fact:
i. That the SSS and NSA requested for CDR from the MTN through letter dated April 21, 2011 and 27th April, 2011; the request was for CDR of some named GSM lines for the period between 1st September, 2010 and 31st January, 2011.
ii. That the CDR issued to the NSA covered the period between Nov, 2010 and January, 2011 while the one issued to the SSS covered December, 2010 to March, 2011. The two CDRs did not cover adequately the intendment of the request from the two organisations. Therefore, the two CDRs could not properly reveal all the communications between the questioned numbers in the period between the September 2010 and 1st January 2011. The two CDRs did not contain incoming calls.
iii. That the MTN admitted not providing all the CDRs for the line for the period between 1st September, 2010 and 31st January, 2011. They explained that whereas the request form the SSS and NSA covered a period of 240 and 247 days respectively their storage capacity is for only 90 days. They provided a letter of approval from the NCC in this regard.
iv. That GSM no. 08034004887 belong to Hon. Justice Isa Ayo Salami, OFR, of Plot 11, New Bussa Close, Area 3, Garki Abuja. The line was migrated to post-paid on 9th May, 2007.
v. That GSM no. 08034010700 belongs to Alh. Tunji Ijaiya of no. 8, Aderemi Adeleye Road, GRA Ilorin, Kwara State.
vi. That GSM no. 08034010700 belonging to Alh. Tunji Ijaiya appeared to have been used as a link between GSM nos. 0803401111 (Lai Rauf Mohammed) 08062240104, 08034240000 and GSM no. 08034004887 belonging to Justice Isa Ayo Salami as there was exchange of calls between Justice Salami and Tunji Ijaiya in one hand and Tunji Ijaiya with other mentioned subscribers on the other hand. The exchange of phone calls spanned between September, 2010 to April, 2011.
8. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION:
From the available CDRs, there is evidence of communication between Hon. Justice Isa Salami and Alhaji Tunji Ijaiya who also communicated with most questioned GSM lines; from September, 2010 to April, 2011. The details and contents of the calls are not known due to the fact that MTN has not extracted voice and text messages on the lines; on grounds of legal limitations. They claimed that there is no law empowering them to provide voice and text messages of their subscribers to security agencies.
9. A legal advice received from the Legal Section of the 'D' Department (FCID), Abuja dated 8th February, 2013 opined that MTN Nigeria should be prosecuted for an attempt to suppress evidence in this case as provided by Section 167 (8) of the Evidence Act, please.
CP Ali Amodu
Commissioner of Police ('X' Squad),
Force Headquaters,
Abuja.
HOW SALAMI EXCHANGED CALLS WITH ACN CHIEFTAINS
Between 11th of October and the15th of October, 2010, Mr Tunji Ijaiya and Justice Salami exchanged 11text message and voice calls between themselves. At 9:22am, on 14th October, 2010, Dr. Kayode Fayemi (08055556655), who was the 1st Appellant in the Ekiti Appeal matter called Mr Tunji Ijaiya.
On the 15th of October 2010 being the day of the judgement in the Ekiti matter, Mr Titus Ashaolu, who was one of the counsels to Dr. Kayode Fayemi in the Appeal Court matter presided over by Justice Salami, was the first to send an SMS to Tunji Ijaya at 9:37am.
At11:08am, Mr Lai Mohammed, ACN Publicity Secretary with Tel No:08034301111 also called Tunji Ijaiya. At 12:46pm on the same day of the judgement, Yusuf Olaolu Ali (SAN), lead counsel to Dr Fayemi in the matter presided over by Justice Salami, also called Tunji Ijaya and they spoke for 78 seconds. At 1:08pm, Mohammed Raufu Lai, who is the Publicity Secretary of the ACN, also called Tunji Ijaya at 1:20pm on the same day, Yusuf Olaolu Alli again called Ijaya. Titus Ashaolu again sent a sms to Ijaya at 1:35pm and subsequently called at 1:40p.m.
Philip Oyinloye, the Chairman of the ACN in Kwara State, called Mr. Ijaya also on the date of the Judgement at 2:08pm. Curiously at 16:45pm, Justice Isa Ayo Salami now called Ijaya.
A day after the Judgment, Dr. Kayode Fayemi sent a text to Ijaya which happened to be the day he was being sworn in as Governor.
NB:
This call details was as provided in the Call Logs released to the Area 'G' Ogba, Lagos, which was tendered at the National Judicial Council (NJC) Probe Panel. It was the same Call Logs that Mr. Mathew Okoromi, MTN Senior Subscriber Fraud Analyst confirmed to be authentic.
Curiously, this same call logs was disowned by Oghenerumi Rotimi, General Manager (Commercial Legal Department) when he gave evidence before the NJC Probe Panel.
The Police Report said on the Call Logs tendered at the NJC probe Panel:
“He (Mr. Mathew Okoromi), having studied and compared the CDR given to Area 'G' (Ogba. Lagos command) confirmed that they are substantially the same with the ones in their records. The CDR is therefore genuine.”