Witness: Metuh hired us to ‘market’ Jonathan

‎For the first time since the trial of Olisa Metuh, spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at the federal high court, Maitama, Abuja, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s name was brought into the proceedings.

Yomi Badejo Okusanya,‎ managing director of CMC connect, a public relations agency, claimed that the former president hired him to “sell” his image to Nigerians ahead of the 2015 presidential election.

Ogunsanya, a witness of the prosecution  counsel‎ (EFCC), while testifying, narrated how Jonathan reached him through Metuh and paid him the sum of N77.5m for image management.

“When Metuh became national publicity secretary of the PDP I met with him, and he said he liked the work we did for the party in the past, but unfortunately that the party did not have money to pay us to continue with the work,” he said.

“He promised to compensate us whenever an opportunity arose. This was in 2012.

“Early November 2014, I got a call from him. And he asked me where I was. I told him I was in Lagos. He said he wanted to me to come to Abuja to attend a meeting.

“When I arrived in Abuja and met him at his house; he drove me to the presidential villa where we met a meeting in progress. At the meeting was former President Goodluck Jonathan; his deputy, Namadi Sambo, Adamu Mu’azu; former PDP chairman; David Mark, former senate president; Reuben Abati, Alkali Rufai, and Doyin Okupe.

“Although, the meeting was in progress, I was able to pick it had to do with how to win the 2015 presidential election.

“In the course of the meeting, Metuh introduced me as the communication consultant that worked for the party before. He then asked me to speak. I proceeded to speak what I considered very frankly with the president.

“I felt it was very important to let him know the critical things he had to do to get the nation right. He asked me a couple of questions himself, and I specifically remembered telling him that there was a disconnect between his government and the people.

“He took everything in good faith and asked us to go. The next evening, Metuh called me and said, ‘You seem to have made an impression on the president. He asked me to coordinate the media campaign plan for the PDP presidential election.’

“So, we set about the work with a plan. I was meeting Metuh severally‎ on the ideas we had on how we could position the party in the minds of Nigerians.

“We got the first payment from him on December 1, 2014 which was N7.5m‎; a cheque he issued in my name. And I transferred the money to my company’s account. This cheque was from Destra Investment Limited.

“On December 15, 2015‎ he did a transfer from Destra Investment Limited of N70m to our company. By middle of December we had started the work.

“The first batch of work we did was to get Nigerians to appreciate the role of the military in the fight against Boko Haram.

“We made advert placements in newspapers, radio and television.”