President Goodluck Jonathan and his family members have started moving their personal belongings out of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, few days after the President lost his re-election bid,Saturday PUNCH can authoritatively report.
Our correspondent sighted some buses loaded with travel bags moving out of the President’s official residence at about midday on Friday.
One of the buses, a white 18-seater Hiace bus marked PF 6244 AL, was still being loaded with bags of different shades and sizes at the time of filing this report.
It was not clear at press time where the buses were heading for.
A source said the early removal of the personal effects of the first family might have been necessitated by the need for the renovation of the residence ahead of the May 29 handover date.
For renovation work to commence on time, the President may have to be operating from outside the residence in the days ahead.
Saturday PUNCH also learnt that the Presidency had commenced a discreet investigation into how a recording of the telephone call by the President to Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) on March 31, congratulating him on his victory at the last Saturday’s presidential election was leaked.
The recording which revealed details of what transpired between the two leaders went viral on the Internet on Thursday.
The audio of the conversation credited to one ENDS.ng @EveryNigerian was titled, “Historic congratulatory call from President Goodluck Jonathan to President-elect Muhammadu Buhari on March 31, 2015.”
A government official, who pleaded anonymity, told our correspondent on Friday that the Presidency was embarrassed by the leaked recording.
While saying that a thorough investigation is underway, the security source said the first step was to ascertain whether the recording was leaked from the Presidency or was made public from the President-elect’s camp.
He said it was only if it was discovered that the recording was leaked from the Presidency that further investigation would be conducted to ascertain those behind it in order to mete out appropriate punishment.
He, however, refused to talk on how long the investigation will take.
“Definitely, unauthorised release of a raw recording of the President’s telephone conversation, if from our (Presidency’s) end is a security breach that cannot go without being investigated,” he said. Source Punch