A defence witness in the ongoing prosecution of the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Olisa Metuh, yesterday told the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja how the Presidency commissioned Metuh to organise publicity for the 2015 presidential elections. Metuh had yesterday opened his defence in the ongoing trial by calling his first witness.
The witness, Ike Abonyi, who was media adviser to the former National Chairman of PDP, Okwesilieze Nwodo, told the court that his principal (Nwodo) hired a consulting firm called CMCConnect to work on the image of the party.
He added that since Metuh was part of Nwodo’s team, he also came in contact with CMCConnect. According to him, “Mr Yomi Badejo came with his team who met with Metuh and some officials of the publicity directorate. Metuh agreed with the consulting firm that he would want them to return to continue from where they stopped when Dr Nwodo was there.
“The consulting firm said that they were willing to return, but the party was owing them. Metuh promised to make a case for them. Following their presentation at that meeting, Metuh told them that there were no resources to pay them, and promised to get back to them if he got resources from the party.
“Virtually, once the general election of 2015 was near, Metuh approached me when I was the Deputy Managing Director of New Telegraph newspaper, and requested that he would need my services at the time. And that he would like if I could come into the party as a consultant to help him on a new challenge of improving the image of the party, which was in bad shape.
“All eyes were on him to come up with strategies to shore up the image of the party ahead of the forthcoming general election.
That was the point I left New Telegraph to join him for the purpose of that challenge he mentioned. When I joined him he wanted us to call back CMC-Connect. He said the leader of the party, the then president, would have no choice but to fund the project.
“Chief Metuh told us that he had been given an assignment by the president to come up with strategies that would help win the general election. He told us the assignment was given to other professionals, that we should see it as a challenge and make sure that our strategy prevailed”.
Abonyi further told the court that the team was invited to the villa by the President where the MD of CMC-Connect did the presentation, and demonstrated most of the strategies they proposed. “After our presentation, the president said jokingly that we were too hard on him, because we made it clear to him that his image was in a bad shape.
“At a point, Reuben Abati, who saw our presentation as an indictment campaign, told the president that the situation was not as bad as we tried to portray. But the president overruled it. “After the presentation, the president asked for comments from those sitting with him, and most of the speakers made positive remarks by what they saw”, Abonyi stated.
