Former minister of Justice and attorney general of the federation, Mr Mohammed Adoke has narrated how his government took the decision to prosecute APC leader, Bola Tinubu, at the Code of Conduct Tribunal in 2011.
According to Adoke, Many people who claimed to be close associate of the APC national leader engineered his trial at the tribunal.
He said, ”What most people don’t know is that a lot of people who claimed to be close to Bola Tinubu, a particular human rights lawyer, was the one that engineered that trial”.
The former AGF, currently in exile made the disclosure in an interview with Premium Times.
Here are some excerpts from the interview…
PT: In the build-up to that election and when oppositions were coming together, there were stories of attempts by your government to nail some of the bigwigs in the opposition camp, notably Bola Tinubu who was prosecuted by the CCB and there were suggestions that Buhari at some point was also about to be prosecuted.
Adoke: Let me clarify this issue very well. Bola Tinubu’s trial took place, it was his case with Code of Conduct Tribunal. It was a very unfortunate thing. But what most people don’t know is that a lot of people who claimed to be close to Bola Tinubu, a particular human rights lawyer, was the one that engineered that trial.
PT: Who is the lawyer?
Adoke: You will read it in my book (Laughter). It is there in my book, a particular human rights lawyer was the one going around the political authorities at that time saying “is this how you people are going to allow Tinubu? He has stolen Lagos blind, is this how you are going allow him to take over Nigeria, you people should move against him”. At the end of the day, the Code of Conduct Bureau people, on the instigation of this lawyer, and I am happy that Mike Oghiadomhe is alive. I am happy persons like Ita Ekpenyong is alive and I wish that the late Azazi is alive because they would have been able to corroborate this story. How Bola Tinubu’s trial came about was unnecessary. Again, the same lawyer was one of those who went to tell Tinubu that “ohh… It is Adoke that is against you”. That was why at that time Bola Tinubu, I think in 2012 or thereabout, came out to say that “the Attorney General is against me” until he spoke to me through Lai Mohammed who, incidentally, was a great friend of mine before he became a minister and who has 24/7 access to me when I was minister.
PT: So you are saying, this lawyer that you have refused to name came to you and…
Adoke: Not me, not me. He went to the political authorities.
PT: He went to the president?
Adoke: No, political authorities. I didn’t mention the president. There were so many authorities within the political structure.
PT: The institution of that case perhaps wouldn’t have happened without you…
Adoke: No, no, no… You are right. Let me tell you something, what was happening was that, I told you in government there are many mansions, there are many interest groups, and there is so much sense of blackmail. I was fighting on so many fronts. Some of these anti-corruption agencies will go and say “we are trying to fight corruption, it is the Attorney General that is not allowing us” and you know how they use the issue of corruption as a base. It is so easy. So when they continue that, I had advised that to me it was unnecessary, but since they didn’t listen, the CCB people came, we said “well, we don’t believe in this prosecution” but they said they have a private lawyer who will prosecute for them under the fiat; we gave them the fiat.
After given them the fiat, when the case collapsed in court and they wanted to go and appeal, I stood my ground and overruled them. I didn’t do that because it was Bola Tinubu, I did it because that was the right thing to do. That was why I refused to go on that appeal. But it would interest you to note that a year or thereabout after the CCT case, one of the members of the tribunal came to us that we should reopen that case that they made a mistake, they can still convict Bola Tinubu. We told him that we don’t use our office for settling scores. I never said this to anybody. I mentioned it to the president that ‘look at what this idiot has come to tell me. I and the president laughed it off.
PT: Our readers are definitely interested in knowing the name of this senior lawyer who persuaded the authorities to institute the case.
Adoke: You will read it in my book.
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