By Chibuike Nwabuko
ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – Former National Publicity Secretary of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh has rescinded his decision to invite former President Goodluck Jonathan to appear in court as his defence witness in his alleged N400million fraud trial in the next adjourned date.
Metuh stated this on Thursday in a statement he personally signed and made available to Sundiata Post.
He disclosed this while reacting to the a statement credited to “Save Ijaw Group wherein they accused the former National Publicity Secretary of having offered himself to be used to pull down former President Goodluck Jonathan in exchange for his freedom against the case against him.
Metuh who reminded he is completely innocent of the charges against him, said he has no cause to negotiate with anybody to let him off a non-existing hook.
Metuh’s statement coincided with the outburst of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), which in a statement sent to Sundiata Post said that it’s attention “has been drawn to an unwarranted and unnecessary act of embarrassment and public ridicule to the former first family of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the instrumentality of the Federal High Court.
“It must be stated for emphasis and without mincing words that any act of embarrassment, public ridicule and prosecution of the former president of Nigeria would be resisted by any means necessary.
“It is totally absurd for a former president who has served this country selflessly and sustained the hard-earned democracy we have today to be dragged by one court or the other, more less to be treated as a common witness.
“We hereby warn all agents of the present Federal Government to retrace their actions and stop prosecutions based on ethnicity and regional lines.” The statement was signed by Iyerifama Godswill Jaja, deputy president of IYC.
However, Metuh described as inconceivable and completely ridiculous for anybody to assume that he would for any reason, betray or surrender himself to be used against his boss, ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, whom he immensely respects “and served diligently, without any apologies, in and out of office.”
Metuh noted that he has nothing to benefit from conspiring with those who humiliated and openly handcuffed him for malicious allegations which they could not substantiate in court.
According to him, except for the unfortunate incident that the anti-corruption fight has shifted the burden of proof to a defendant once allegation is made, “the content of the charge against me in the Federal High Court should not breed any worries.”
He continued: “On the issue of conniving with the government against former President Goodluck Jonathan, 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.”
The former PDP spokesman, who admitted that it was undeserving of the status, person and image of the former President Jonathan to be so summoned to appear in court, stressed that he has instructed his legal team to revisit and review the entire issue of the subpoena.
He stressed that it was purely on the need for corroboration of lack of mens rea on his part that led his counsel to request for the evidence of the respected former President to assist them in proving his innocence.
While re-echoing that he habour no ill feeling or malice against the former President Jonathan or anyone else, he said that he has shouldered his travails personally without seeking to involve any other individual or group in the unfortunate saga.
