he Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) as a group of organizations with the objective of fighting corruption and corrupt persons at all levels has been a keen watcher of Chief Michael Aondoakaa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF since his appointment was confirmed by the Senate in 2007 and he declared he would rather prevent corruption in the country than prosecute corrupt leaders. We have found him to be roguish, corruptible, insensitive and incompetent either as a Minister in any Ministry or the Attorney-General in Nigeria
This supposed Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of Federation whose activities since he assumed office has proven that he is a wrong person for the right position he is holding in trust for us, the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The senior member of the bar has demonstrated by his acts, behaviours and public pronouncements that he is not ready to defend the best interest of Nigerians especially in apprehending and bringing corrupt leaders to justice. Rather than taking steps to make corruption unattractive to politically exposed citizens, his efforts so far have only be geared towards arranging soft-landing for and glorifying convicted corrupt leaders, providing covers for the indicted and suspected ones to evade the course of justice and preventing the anti-corruption agencies at home and abroad from bringing the corrupt to book. We have reasons for this assertion.
We had wondered how the gentleman would not start a journey of one thousand years with a step but would rather start from the end. He wanted to prevent an accident that had happened, that is, cry when the head was already off. He was criticized that his strategy was an impossible task and advised to devise a strategy to deal with cases of the large number of Nigerian leaders who were already being investigated or prosecuted both within and outside Nigeria ; he admitted he would prosecute all proven cases of corruption but never did any till date. Beyond that, we had a couple of other reservations on the competence and appropriateness of Barrister Aondoakaa occupying a position that required high sense of responsibility, integrity and commitment to the course of justice. It is our belief that an effective public defender also needs a great sense of morality, empathy and selflessness. All these great qualities are found absent in our own AGF Aondoakaa.
The first indication that the AGF’s admission of responsibility to prosecute corrupt leaders was a fluke came to fore when he said publicly that he and the anti-graft agencies under his ministry would have prosecuted former President Olusegun Obasanjo if there had been a petition against the ex-president whose corrupt activities while in office were an open secret to all and sundry. CACOL was thoroughly flabbergasted by the statement not only because the AGF, as the number one public defender in the country, needed not ask for petitions before ordering investigation and possible prosecution of suspected past or current public office holders, but also all enlightened Nigerians knew that we submitted petitions that chronicled some of the suspected corrupt dealings of the former president while his tenure of terror lasted. The petitions that were submitted on hand to the EFCC and ICPC just a few weeks before he made the statement were preceded by public processions staged by CACOL members and various news media reported them worldwide. We later wrote Chief Aondoakaa to express our disappointment in him that we expected him to be better informed about issues affecting his office than he demonstrated. We then asked him to resign if he did not have enough nerves to man the office whose primary function is to be the defence of the best interest of the ordinary Nigerians.
Again there is a case of conflict of interest between Barrister Aondoakaa and his function as the Attorney-General of the Federation. It would be recalled that our AGF was one of the counsels defending the former Governor of Benue State, George Akume, also accused of corruption, in a case seeking the Supreme Court to declare that the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) was an illegal body that lacked the rights to investigate or prosecute corruption cases. Since the EFCC is an agency under the Ministry of Justice, it means Chief Aondoakaa as the Minister of Justice is handling a case against the Federal Government he was appointed to be part of and whose side he is expected to defend. What this means is that the Minister is prosecuting a case against an agency he supervises and is prosecuting cases of corruption against those who turned out to be his clients that his private law firm defends. If he had his way, it means he would abandon the Courts and just scrap the ‘unwanted’ agency by administrative fiat, at least, while his clients’ cases lasted. His interest in cases of some alleged corrupt past governors makes him both the prosecution and the defence counsel in them!
Any wonder then that the first assignment the Minister embarked upon was to try to incapacitate the EFCC and its sister agencies like the ICPC and CCB by usurping their prosecutorial powers. When that attempt failed owing to the widespread outcry against his proposition, he tried another trick of subsuming them under the Nigeria Police – the para-military civil defence institution that sees itself more as a military outfit and has turned civil night mare. The Nigeria Police had been rated as the most corrupt institution in Nigeria . That effort failed too. Nonetheless there is a hiding place for the AGF to protect his alleged corrupt allies in the constitutional provision that makes him the Lord of all prosecutions to be undertaken by all agencies under his ministry. He has to assent to all cases prepared by the agencies before they get to Court. If he withholds his assent, the culprit may never get prosecuted no matter what evidence and witnesses there are against such culprit. This is the instrument Barrister Aondoakaa has not failed in using to its maximum.
It is this almighty power the AGF uses to protect many of his cronies without us knowing since the anti-graft agencies may only grunt but cannot sing as long as their boss has vested interest in any case being handled. One glaring case of the use of this veto power was his attempt to prevent the detention and arraignment of the indicted bank executives over illegal loan dealings. Chief Aondoakaa with neither notice nor instruction travelled out of the country while the indicted bankers were being picked up by the EFCC. If the latter had not been smart enough to have obtained a court order to detain the banksters, many of them would have escaped the course of justice. The AGF might have reasoned that the Commission would be incapacitated since it would merely rely on his assent for the detention and arraignment of the alleged bad bankers while his sojourn for nothing lasted in Europe .
We may soon discover that the last expose we got from the EFCC contradicting the AGF over the Vmobile scandal is a defiant move that will cost the Agency’s Chairman her job, depending on whose side the president and we, the Nigerian people stand. The AGF’s had engaged in a miscalculated attempt to use the EFCC as cannon fodder in protecting one of his former governor friends, Chief James Ibori, who and two others the AGF claimed the EFCC had cleared of culpability. Ibori had, while in office as Delta State governor used shares of Delta State as collateral for N44billon loan taken by his private company, Ascort Limited, from one of the failing banks. The coercion attempt backfired and exposed the hypocrisy of Chief Aondoakaa as the EFCC refused to be wrongly used and cried out against the malfeasance. This is even when further crimes are being committed by them against the people whose interest they are expected to protect. Chief James Ibori especially had asked the creditor bank to sell the shares he know full well belong to his state to offset debts owed by his private company without regards to the criminality of such act of dishonesty. In his attempt to give legitimacy to his patent lies, Aondoakaa lied against those not indicted on the deal as having been cleared along with his serial-corruptionist friend, Chief James Onanefe Ibori.
The AGF, who is expected to be the chief prosecutor of caught thieving rascals in government houses, is only serving as their chief protector. As we observed earlier, it was our Aondoakaa who frustrated Ibori’s trial in another London court because he withheld necessary information and mandate needed to prosecute the case. According to the court, “the evidence against him (Ibori) did not emanate from Nigeria ”. Just about the time our AGF protested the prosecution of Ibori by the Met police in London, the Court of Appeal in Kaduna struck out the EFCC’s case against the suspected crook on the grounds that Kaduna was about 700 kilometres from Delta State where the offence was allegedly committed! CACOL suspected that Aondoakaa’s stance on the case influenced the court’s decision since he bosses the courts. Our dismay stems from the fact that there had been several earlier pronouncements that Federal Courts, be it High or Appellate were one and the same no matter which part of the federation its officials operate. This gives an impression that “the present suspect on trial was a special one with larger-than-life image and should be so treated”. Nonetheless, the preferential treatment had not been our worry but using it as an excuse to frustrate diligent prosecution of a leader who is suspected to have caused his people a lot of socio-economic calamity.
Equally, the AGF tried to forcefully take over the prosecution of the former governor of Abia State who was being arraigned for corruption charges from the EFCC based on a purported restraining order on the prosecuting EFCC. Although the office of the AGF was expected to argue on the side of the EFCC, the contrary was the case. The counsel representing the AGF took up the defence of the alleged culprit by asking for stay of proceeding based on a non-existent restraining order. Barrister Aondoakaa had earlier tried to save the former minister of petroleum, Chief Dan Etete in 2007 when he was being tried in France for money laundering when he wrote that he was unaware that Chief Etete was ever accused of any corrupt practice neither was power of attorney given to any French lawyer to prosecute the then minister. This gimmick failed as Etete was tried and convicted in absentia to three years imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 euros.
Your Excellency would remember that the AGF tried to extricate Ibori from the restraint proceedings in a London court. According to media reports, the Southwark Crown Court in London had on August 2, 2007 frozen Ibori’s assets around the world estimated at about $35 million. But the freeze order was lifted on October 2, 2007 after Speechly Birchain, Ibori’s Lawyer, presented to the court a letter written by Aondoakaa stating that the former governor was under no investigation in Nigeria in response to an inquiry from Birchain without reference to EFCC, ICPC, CCB or any other investigating agency in the country. Significantly, AGF Aondoakaa said in his letter that he had not requested the Metropolitan Police in London for any assistance in investigating Ibori as required under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between Nigeria and Britain . This let Ibori off the hook. Nonetheless, Ibori’s victory in Britain was short-lived as another court has reinstated the freeze order on his assets. Besides, Chief James Ibori, according to a Counsel to the EFCC, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs, is an ex-convict of Clerkkenwell Magistrates Court, London . He was fined 300 pounds and ordered to pay 450 pounds as costs.
Despite his promise to diligently prosecute all indicted corrupt public officers in Nigeria, the AGF has been reported to refuse to release the 25 witnesses from the EFCC requested for by the Metropolitan police in London to bring Chief Ibori and Victor Attah, the former governor of Akwa Ibom state to trial slated for Tuesday September 21 2009 for alleged money laundering. Our AGF is in the game of trying to frustrate the trial of his friends for corruption once again as he had earlier done and failed for Dan Etete and James Ibori in France and London respectively. To protest the trial by the Met Police, as he had done in the earlier cases also, the AGF shamelessly jetted out to London with a view to don his wig and gown in court to defend the alleged international fraudsters, even when he claims to be fighting corrupt leaders at home. What a shameless ambivalence. Thank God for the Nigerian Liberty Forum who smoked him out of his Marriot Hotel hide out in London and threatened to shame him if he eventually appears in the court.
This same Minister of Justice and AGF whose priority should be defence of ordinary Nigerians by promptly bringing corrupt leaders to book has severally demonstrated that he has no interest in such engagement. It would be recalled that the AGF promised to bring to book all those mentioned in several international scandals such as Siemens, Wilbross, Pentascope, Halliburton etc but has not done anything beyond efforts to sweep the vices under the carpet. Even when he succumbed to public demand for definite action on Halliburton scandal, the AGF only pretended to have traveled to the United States in search of the indicted Nigerians in the case. We learnt that our AGF only went on a trade mission to the US rather than chase after the Halliburton culprits. When he came back he handed the case over to a committee headed by the Nigeria Police as if the police force is more effective than the EFCC that has done extensive work and recorded much progress on the scam. And as expected, nothing has come out of the rigmarole.
Now that the EFCC has woken up from its slumber and ready to hold the bull by the horn, the AGF should not constitute itself as clog in the wheel of anti-corruption progress in Nigeria . Nigerians are not satisfied with logical gymnastics Barrister Aondoakaa is playing with the rule-of-law mantra with which he helps corrupt friends of his hide their criminality to escape justice. We are also not satiasfied by the mild punishments the judiciary gave the convicted former governor of Bayelsa State , Dipriye Alaiyemesigha and former Inspector-General of police, Tafa Balogun which were based on corrupted version of what justice should be termed “plea bargain”. Whoever is found guilty of crimes against the people should be made to face the full wrath of the law.
Mr President, we would not want you to continue to accord state respect to suspected or convicted corrupt leaders like Peter Odili, the former governor of Rivers State who was granted yet to be vacated perpetual injunction against arrest and prosecution, and Lucky Igbinedion, the convicted former governor of Edo State, who was given just a slap-on-the-wrist punishment for monumental corrupt practices and you received in your office with open arms as a leader of a delegation. True, these former governors belong to the same alumni of past governors with you. However they are your friends you need to dissociate from and disown otherwise the case of “show me your friend…” will apply and Nigerians may begin to treat you as an accessory, accomplice or a potential member of the club of corrupt leaders. Their indulgence by both the judiciary and federal government is a dent on your seven-point agenda and your Minister of Information, Dora Akuyili’s re-branding campaign. It will for long remain fresh sore points in our memory that Nigeria ’s judicial system has to nurture.
Mr President, we wonder if it is true that Chief Michael Aondoakaa was nominated for your appointment as the AGF by the ex-convict of London’s Clerkenwell Magistrates Court, former Governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori who we also learnt was the biggest financial powerhouse for the your presidential campaign in the 2007 election. Could it therefore be true that you may never be able to call this powerful minister of yours to saner order owing to his close relationship with your former colleague and benefactor? If you fail to call him to order, your Excellency, Chief Aondoakaa will not only embarrass you as the chief accounting officer of your regime, he will also get you ostracized from the company of leaders of comity of decent nations as you experienced with the G-20 and ignored by President Barack Obama when he came calling in Africa. Such judicial misbehaviour from our AGF can also return our country to the pariah status we donned for so long for allowing military brigandage in our polity. Such will also expose you and your regime to international ridicule as you experienced during the august visit of the US Secretary of State, Mrs Hillary Clinton, who tongue-lashed you for keeping crooks in your cabinet and paying just lip service to the fight against corruption. However it has been proven, as we stated above that Chief Michael Aondoakaa is a personal friend to the Iboris and other corrupt public office holders in the country, including bankers of fraud and their collaborators. He would never have any reason to spot any fault in them, no matter their indictment. He is however an incurable enemy of the corrupt’s prosecuting agency, the EFCC as well as other anti-graft agencies that will never get adequate cooperation from him, as their boss for diligent prosecution of the indicted corrupt persons.
CACOL therefore calls on you, Mr. President; to live up to the confidence that ordinary members of this society repose on you by summoning up adequate courage to do the right thing by performing the sacred duty that will stand the test of history no matter whose ox is gored. Barrister Aondoakaa is a dent on whatever your regime stands for, he should be asked to resign forthwith or be sacked.
Furthermore, we appeal to all concerned arms and organs of government, especially the Senate, judicial officers both at the bar and the bench, especially the National Assembly and all recipients of a copy of this letter should please exert adequate pressure on the relevant organs and authorities that will ensure timely exit of this pro-corruption activist that Aondoakaa is. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to which Aondoakaa belongs to should please stop this member of theirs from further embarrassing Nigeria by recalling him out of the National Cabinet. On our own part, CACOL will team up with all other progressive institutions, organizations and individuals to at appropriate time stage indefinite mass protest to ensure the deserved exit of this man who has turned himself to the Attorney-General of the corrupt from the cabinet of our government.
Finally we urge all government functionaries in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, including those in political and administrative offices, to do their utmost best to ensure that all alleged corrupt leaders truly and sincerely prove their innocence or otherwise face the full weight of the law. It is our country, nay all of us that will be better for it. Justice must not only be done at all times, it must be seen to have been done. That is where our national pride truly lies. That is the actual re-branding Nigerians need.
Debo Adeniran
Executive Chairman, CACOL
Sunday, 20 September, 2009
cc:
• The President of the Senate
• The Honourable Speaker, House of Representatives
• The Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation
• The Chairman, National Judicial Commission
• The President, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA)
http://www.saharareporters.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3756:sack-aondoaka-now-cacol-write-yaradua&catid=115:petitions&Itemid=361
No comments:
Post a Comment