* Seeks information on controversial call logs
* PDP plot to oust Appeal Court president before April alleged
                       
The Department of State Services, otherwise known as the SSS, has written the telecommunications company, MTN, for details of two calls recorded in the system from November 1, 2010. The numbers are: 08034004887 and 08033120001.

The SSS request may not be unconnected with the alleged calls between Justice Ayo  Salami, the president of the Court of Appeal, and some members of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to influence the appellate cases on the 2007 gubernatorial election in Ekiti and Osun States.

The SSS took the action just as a report alleged a plot by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to get rid of Salami as the Appeal Court president ahead of the April polls.

Former Governor Segun Oni of Ekiti State (PDP), who lost the case to ACN’s Dr Kayode Fayemi had petitioned the National Judicial Council (NJC), citing the alleged calls, while the acting chairman of the Osun PDP wrote a similar petition to President Goodluck Jonathan on behalf of former Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola.

A source said, at the weekend, that the SSS letter called for assistance in the call logs concerning the numbers cited by Oni and the Osun PDP, chief, indicating various locations of subscribers with effect from November 1, 2010.

The letter also reportedly implored the telecommunications firm to place the numbers on permanent monitoring while asking for the periodic activities of the lines.

The MTN external communications manager, Andrew Okereke, when contacted, yesterday, said he could not confirm whether the SSS made the request on the controversial call log.

According to him, call logs are not items to be released unless authorised by security agencies.

His words: “I can’t confirm if any request for call logs was made by the SSS today being Saturday. If it were a working day, I would have been able to do so.

“There is no way any telecommunications operators can release any CDR of a customer without the authority of any security organisation like the SSS or the police.”

Meanwhile, the PDP is alleged to have launched a plot to get rid of Justice Ayo Salami as the president of the Court of Appeal as part of the bigger plan to stem any bid to challenge its victory by all means in the April polls.

A report named the minister of justice and attorney general of the federation, Bello Adokie, as head of a committee  in charge of the anti-Salami project.

Adokie, according to the report, is working with the chief justice of the federation, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, to cause Salami to be  removed from the headship of the Court of Appeal.

The removal of Salami is said to be imperative to the PDP so that he does not preside over the constitution of the appeal panels to look into any legal dispute that may arise from the April polls.

The Appeal Court president had recently accused the CJN of attempting to persuade him to pervert the course of justice in the 2007 gubernatorial case in Sokoto State.