Senator Ndume Contacted Boko Haram Leader 73 Times In One Month — SSS

Mr. Ndume tells a court to dismiss telephone logs between
him and the sect's member

An embattled Senator, Mohammed Ndume, who is facing
charges for alleged links to the militant group, Boko Haram,
contacted the group's spokesperson 73 times within a month,
investigators told a federal court on Wednesday.

Mr. Ndume was arrested late 2011 by the State Security
Service, SSS, and accused of sponsoring the Islamist sect.

Mr. Ndume claims his contact with the group was necessitated by his membership of the Presidential Committee mandated to help restore peace to the troubled North East of the country.

Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for series of
bombings and gun attacks that have plagued Northern
Nigeria resulting in more than a thousand deaths.

The SSS said Mr. Ndume, who is from Borno State, the
hotbed of the crisis, was constantly in touch with an alleged
spokesperson of the group, Mohammed Konduga.
Mr. Konduga was convicted and is currently serving a three-
year jail term.

Mr. Ndume's phone call history is central to establishing his
relationship with the sect; and on Tuesday, a Federal High
Court in Abuja brushed aside the senator's objection to
admit the phone call logs as key evidence in the case.

The SSS told the court that the senator's call log showed that
he spoke with Mr. Konduga 73 times in October 2011.

At the resumed hearing of the case, Aliyu Usman, a forensic
expert with the SSS, while giving evidence said the history
of the communication contacts was contained in the two
mobile telephones obtained from Mr. Ndume and Mr.
Konduga.

Mr. Usman said the communication between the two persons
took place between October 3, 2011 and November 3, 2011,
adding that they were in the form of text messages and voice
calls.

The telephone lines used were those of MTN mobile
network, and the details of the communication were obtained
from the network, he added.

Mr. Usman said adequate forensic analyses were carried out
on the data extracted from the two phones before storing
them on three DVDs.

Mr. Ndume's lawyer, Rickey Tarfa, a Senior Advocate of
Nigeria, SAN, again objected to the tendering of the DVDs
as evidence on Wednesday arguing that they were secondary
evidence and should have been accompanied by a statement.
He argued that the items were in violation of the Evidence
Act.

"The essence of Section 102 of the Evidence Act is to guide
against the tendering of fake computer generated materials,"
he said.

But the prosecution lawyer, Thompson Olatigbe, said the
items had already been admitted by the court and as such
they became primary evidences.

On the absence of certification, Mr. Olatigbe argued that the
witness merely transmitted the contents of the two phones
into DVDs and produced hard copies, as according to him,
the elements would be subjected to further tests by the court.
Justice Gabriel Kolawole will rule on the objection on
December 14.