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One of the lawyers employed by Ondo State governor,
Olusegun Mimiko, to defend him before the election petition tribunal
was quizzed at the weekend by men of the State Security Service (SSS)
over the source of the security report he tendered during the election
petitions tribunal proceedings.

Mr Mimiko, the candidate of the Labour Party,
challenged the declaration of former governor, Olusegun Agagu of the
PDP as winner of the 2007 polls at the tribunal, and successfully had
his victory at the polls affirmed by the tribunal. The lawyer, Remi
Olatubora, who is the chairman of Ondo State Sports Council, was one of
the notable legal practitioners contracted by Mr. Mimiko to plead his
case at both the tribunal and the Appeal Court.

Mr. Olatobora, who confirmed to reporters in Akure
that he was invited by the director of SSS to his office at the
Alagbaka during the weekend, said he was drilled for several hours. He
said he was denied access to his phone immediately he entered the
agency’s offices.

“Straight away, as I got to the SSS office, I was
stripped off my phones and I was quizzed by a team of interrogators
from Abuja, headquarters of the security agency,” he said.

Some members of the PDP in the state had called for
the evaluation of the judgment of the Election Petition Tribunal
delivered in the case to test the authenticity of security reports
tendered during the proceedings at the tribunals.

Questions about exhibits

They further argued that the security reports
tendered by Mr Mimiko’s counsel during the course of the litigation
were either forged or fake. Mr. Olatubora, who noted that he was
questioned by the SSS team led by one Mohammed Garba, said he was asked
to disclose the source of the security reports tendered during
proceedings.

“I told them that I was not in the position to know where the
litigant got his SSS reports from, but I admitted that it was parts of
the exhibits tendered at the Tribunal,” he said. “I told my
interrogators that I was not the lead counsel of Mimiko’s legal team
and could not have known.”