GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA: FOR WHO THE BELL TOLLS NEXT.
Just five people shy of Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting incident that claimed 26 lives, the Uvalde Texas Robb elementary school mass shooting at 21 victims, now ranks among the highest grossing gun carnage in America. It is sad that such frequent blood spilling has tragically become part of our culture as a society. May the souls of the killed now rest.
25th AMENDMENT: ITS NOW ALL CRICKET.
Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi once questioned former President Donald John Trump's fitness to remain in office due to what she claimed was his declining mental capacity. Does anyone know what Madam Speaker presently thinks about the incontrovertible case which America is now saddled with? Just curious!
WHO WILL REBUILD UKRAINE?
The West should convert frozen Russian assets, both state's and oligarchs' owned, into a full seizure and set them aside for the future rebuilding of Ukraine. Like the Marshal Plan, call it the Putin Plan.
A HERO IS BORN.
I am staying put. I will not run away and abandon my people. The fight is here in Ukraine. What I need are weapons and ammunitions, not a ride out of town like former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani - President Volodymyr Zelensky.
IT IS WHAT IT IS.
"There is too much hate in America because there is too much anger in America." - Trevor Noah.
WORD!
A life without challenges is not a life lived at all. A life lived is a life that has problems, confronts problems, solves problems and then learns from problems. - Tunde Fashola.
NOW, YOU KNOW.
When fishing for love, bait with your heart and not your brain, because you cannot rationalize love. - Mark Twain.
JUST THE FACT.
In our country, you can shoot and kill a nigger, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings - Dave Chappelle
DO YOU?.
“What you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk for it." - Stuart Scheller.
HEDGE YOUR CRISIS.
Never get in bed with a woman whose problems are worse than yours. - Chicago PD.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
'The best way to keep peace is to be ready to destroy evil. If you Pearl Harbor me, I Nagasaki you.' - Ted Nugent.
OUR SHARED HUMANITY.
Empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings. - Cardinal Matthew Kukah.
#MeToo MOVEMENT: A BAD NEWS GONE CRAZY.
"To all the women who testified, we may have different truth, but I have a great remorse for all of you. I have great remorse for all of the men and women going through this crisis right now in our country. You know, the movement started basically with me, and I think what happened, you know, I was the first example, and now there are thousands of men who are being accused and a regeneration of things that I think none of us understood. I’m not going to say these aren’t great people. I had wonderful times with these people. I’m just genuinely confused. Men are confused about this issue. We are going through this #MeToo movement crisis right now in this country." - Harvey Weinstein.
RON DELLUMS: UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL.
"If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical.” - Ron Vernie Dellums.
A cat with nine lives, President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria! He has made a dramatic recovery and in the battle for his life, he appears to be gaining the upper hand? Looking at his most recent picture, it appears that the Nigeria President have turned the corner in his ailment. We are grateful that the president has been spared the hammer of death; and pray that such magnanimity of God/Allah will strengthen him, turn him loose and enable him to now govern; no longer worrying or exacerbated where his next emergency doctor will be flown in from? Icheoku wishes that 'Mr Slowman' Yar'Adua can now speed up governance a little bit, starting with the removal of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Micheal Aondoakaa! He is the type of Attorney General no one would wish on his worst president; and Yar'Adua is not our most favorite president, being a corroborator in the charade of May 2007. Michael Aondoakaa has not investigated how the former Attorney General Bola Ige was murdered by Olusegun Obasanjo? Mike Aondoakaa has shielded former governor of Delta State, James Ibori from prosecution. Mike Aondoakaa was instrumental in removing Nuhu Ribadu from the good work he was doing at the EFCC. Mike is known to be frustrating attempts by Farida's EFCC to seriously tackle the criminality of corruption in Nigeria. Mike frustrated the president's amnesty by disappearing when he was supposed to harmonize the process to effect the president's desire to resolve the conflict of the Niger Delta. Just few days ago, he claimed that three suspects wanted by the EFCC have been cleared by the same agency which later denied the report, claiming that they have not cleared the suspects? He talks too much for an Attorney General? He is also interested in the governorship of Benue State, with James Ibori's active support and sponsorship? Mike's activities at the Justice Department marks President Umaru Yar'Adua as not being serious with fighting corruption or that he compromises it otherwise why let such a blatant 'shielder' and protector of James Ibori be your chief law enforcement officer? He has made too many contradictory statements about law enforcements in Nigeria especially with clearing some suspects and resisting and frustrating EFCC from clearing the cesspool of corruption in Nigeria! All these should be a matter of great concern for the president, and being a well known source of embarrassment for the presidency, his immediate off-loading from the government is the best possible solution. That Micheal Kassie Aondoakaa is corrupt is deducible from the company he keeps, his friends and actions; such as trying so hard to frustrate the investigation by EFCC of known corrupt former government officials such as Governor James Ibori & co. In short, Michael Kassie Aondoakaa is no longer a fit and proper person to continue to lead the Nigeria justice department and should be fired or forced to resign immediately. Any attempt to continue to keep him therein, in total disregard to Nigerians public opinion, will spell disaster for President Umaru Yar'Adua's future political aspirations and diminish him and Nigeria as a place where you pay to play and where corruption thrives unabashedly! 
Peradventure, the president has recovered enough to summon the strength to call for Aondoakaa's immediate resignation and fire him if he does not do so. It is our candid opinion that the Attorney General and Minister of Justice Mike Kassie Aondoakaa is an epitome of what a chief law enforcement officer of a nation should not be and therefore should be let go! Such a political liability is just too much of a payload to carry into 2011 elections; and the world continues to view Nigeria as a pay to play nation where there is a price-tag for everybody? What an image! And what has Mike done or doing about it? Nothing of course! Icheoku therefore, heretofore call for the immediate sacking of Micheal Kassie Aondoakaa from the Justice Ministry that law enforcement in Nigeria may once again proceed smoothly, uninterrupted and uninhibited.
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Christy 'Apena' Essien-Igbokwe , the wife of Jegede Shokoya of the New Masquerade and Nigeria's lady of songs is dead; she was 51years old. Although her family claimed that "brief Illness" killed her like so many Nigerians; Icheoku retorts that it was most likely AKwa Ibom voodoo and remote control that was used to arrest her. It is on record that she had fallen out with the governor of her native Akwa Ibiom State and have been having a relentless war for political turf with the governor? So who knows whether she was sacrificed to Ekpe cult or even Alusi-Okija as an offal; afterall African science is still very much alive and portent. May her soul rest in peace.
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Andoakaa, a threat to anti corruption war –TMG
ReplyDeleteLatest news
Written by Abbas Jimoh
Following the denial by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that it cleared former Delta State Governor James Ibori and two others in connection with the Vmobile (now Zain) shares scandal, the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) yesterday said the Attorney General and Minister of Justice of the Federation Chief Michael Andoakaa is a threat to the nation’s anti-corruption war and should resign immediately.
Chairman of the group Comrade Moshood Erubami and Publicity Secretary Awwal Musa Rafsanjani said the EFCC’s clarification had further exposed Andoakaa as a government official playing the script of some corrupt politicians in the country.
“The fact of the matter is that the letter dated January 12, 2009 which Andoakaa was trying to misuse as a clearance certificate is an ordinary letter calling on the bank to lift an earlier caution placed by the EFCC, on the account of the African Development Funds Inc. no. 011400552, where the commission received on the sales of the shares pending the conclusion of the substantive cases of conspiracy, money laundering, abuse of office, and official corruption.
“From the exchange of correspondences between the EFCC and the bank, it is evident that the EFCC letter ref.no.cr.300/EFCC/ls/eg2/vol.2/266 dated 21/3/2007 was only used to place caution on the account while the other letter dated 12th January 2009 was used to lift the caution. Thus, the TMG expects the minister to know the difference between the purports of the two letters especially as a senior advocate of Nigeria.
“What the EFCC letter sought from the bank was to remove the caution earlier placed on the operation of the account only. There is nowhere in the letter where anybody was cleared of the complicities levied against them in the charges except in the figment of the imagination of the minister. The facts therefore remain that nobody was cleared before Britain requested for the details of the case. TMG therefore urge the minister to submit needed information to Britain without further delay,” Erubami said.
He expressed disappointment that a minister of justice would choose to give “false and exaggerated” information to Nigerians and the world, in a case which proof had been placed before a court of competent jurisdiction by the EFCC.
He said, “It is gratifying though and commendable that the EFCC refuses to be blackmailed in this regard, by being forthright to lay the charges at the door step of the accused and declaring Andoakaa’s uncalculated defence as a blatant untruth, leaving the accused to expend and frustrate themselves to prove their innocence, albeit, beyond reasonable doubt. Having now been proved that the minister did not tell the truth to the nation in respect of this case,, we call on the Senate to recall the minister and show him the way out for the embarrassment he has caused the nation and for breaking the confidence on which he was confirmed as minister by the senate in the first instance.”
Aondoakaa And The Nation
ReplyDeleteWritten by Sam Nda-Isaiah
Sunday, 13 September 2009 20:12
I will start with an unrelated story someone, a Nigerian, told me in London at the weekend. He was very upset at a 419 letter he had just received from someone in Togo. It's the usual 419 email which many of us are quite familiar with. Such mail is usually from someone trying to con you into paying money into some accounts and blah, blah, blah.
I was wondering why my friend was so angry at something that, at best, should be laughed at. "Imagine," he said repeatedly. "How can someone from Togo send me, a Nigerian, a 419 email?" he continued. "Doesn't he know I am a Nigerian? Doesn't he know we originated the art of 419 itself? It's an insult for a thief to want to steal from a thief. He should have come for advanced lessons in the trade." We all laughed.
A few years ago, Collin Powell, the very well-regarded former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Armed Forces, former US national security adviser and former US secretary of state, declared in an interview that "Nigeria is a nation of scammers". A few Nigerians were upset about the statement and many of us wondered why people should be so upset about the obvious truth. Apart from the art and science of international 419 which we are already exporting around the world, Nigeria is the world leader in election rigging, corruption, bad governance, money laundering and all similar crimes. Our leaders not only rig elections, they share bribes to judges to legitimise obviously rigged elections.
Last week, something curious happened. The Metropolitan Police in London invited Mr. David Edevbie, the president's principal private secretary (PPS), to London to defend himself over allegations of money laundering. In every civilised country – and that, of course, includes the United Kingdom – every accused person is considered innocent until the court declares otherwise, and we know the UK has a reliable judicial system. By the way, it has been alleged that Edevbie holds a British passport. If indeed Edevbie believes he has a strong case and he has been wrongly accused, it is his duty to prove this and even eventually sue the Metropolitan Police if he wins. And for someone who is, in fact, believed to be a British citizen himself, this should not be a problem. But it is embarrassing that it is the attorney-general of the federation who has been so unbelievably eager to defend Edevbie and others against such charges. It is even more so that the police and the courts in another country will be more interested in protecting Nigeria from those who loot her resources than the chief law officer of Nigeria itself. What a country! Only in Nigeria would you hear of such a shameless and disgraceful thing. So, why did they complain when Mrs. Hillary Clinton told the obvious truth about them recently?
I sometimes wonder why the president allows Aondoakaa – who has been pejoratively renamed "Dan Doka" and "I-don't-care" by disgusted Nigerians – to continue to drag his name, his presidency and even the name of the country through the mire. "Dan Doka" is the only attorney-general in the world to have openly rejoiced when Nigeria lost a case sometime ago. It is very difficult to know how the brain of such a guy works. I wonder where he read his own law.
If the British police charges a Nigerian public officeholder to court, as they did last week, the most civilised thing for any attorney-general to do would be to help find out whether indeed the nation was looted. He is not expected to jump into the fray, hysterically shielding people from the law. What kind of attorney-general is this one?
$38m V-Mobile shares: I won’t join issues with Farida
ReplyDeleteFrom GODWIN TSA Abuja
Monday, September 14, 2009
•Aondoakaa
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Michael Aondoakaa (SAN) has denied any conflict between his office and that of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as they both have a good working relationship.
Consequently, he said he would not join issues with EFCC Chairman Mrs. Farida Waziri on the controversy as to whether or not the Commission had cleared three ex-governors including Chief Obong Victor Attah, James Ibori and Bola Tinubu of Akwa Ibom, Delta and Lagos states over the professional fees paid by them to African Development Fund Incorporations (ADFI) for sales of their shares worth about $38 million in the V-Mobile, a telecommunication firm.
The chief law officer of the federation was reacting to a statement by the anti-graft agency to the effect that the three ex- governors involved in the deal had not been cleared.
He maintained that with respect to the professional fees, which have become a subject of litigation in a London Court, the three former governors were investigated by the EFCC and cleared.
“If EFCC says that the ex-governors have not been cleared on the issue of the professional fee paid to the ADFI, I won’t join issues with the commission.
“What I believed the EFCC Chairman could have said was that the fact that they have been cleared on this issue of the professional fees paid to the ADFI does not mean that other investigations on other issues are not on-going.
“I think she might have been quoted out of context.
“Until she faces me and says it by herself that the ex-governors have not been cleared on this issue of the legal fees paid by the ex-governors to ADFI Account Number 0140011552, I will know what to say.
“In any event, I can’t see any conflict in what I have said and what EFCC is saying.
“The issue in question is the professional fee and brokerage paid by these ex-governors to ADFI with respect to the sale of the shares owned by their respective states in V-Mobile which a petition investigated by the EFCC described as money-laundering and another allegation that David Edevbire, the Private Principal Secretary to President Umaru Yar’Adua was involved in the signing of the agreement between the ADFI and the ex-governors.
“I have said that David Edevbire was not involved in any way in the deal and that the attempt to bring in his name is only to tarnish the image of the government of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and rubbish his anti-corruption war.
“I am not talking from the air. The facts are there and they are sacred.
“I have said that the Federal Government would refuse prosecution of any Nigerian before a London court on offences which ingredients are domiciled in Nigeria .
“In this case, the Metropolitan Police are before the London Court against ADFI on the grounds that the professional fees paid by the three ex-governors to it are proceeds of crime (money-laundering).
“And the fact of this case is that the issue of the professional fees paid to ADFI has been investigated in Nigeria by EFCC and those involved have been cleared.
“The press statement I issued on the case relates to the issue of the professional fees paid by them to the ADFI which is the subject-matter of criminal litigation before the London court.
“The court case by EFCC started in Nigeria against the ADFI itself has been withdrawn by EFCC upon its discovery that no prima facie case stood against the incorporation.
“I have no problem with EFCC. We have a cordial working relationship,” he concluded.
Sack Aondoaka Now-CACOL writes Yar'adua
ReplyDeleteWritten by Debo Adeniran-CACOL
Monday, 21 September 2009 11:33
The 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.
ReplyDeleteAgain 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 .
ReplyDeleteWe 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.
ReplyDeleteYour 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.
ReplyDeleteNow 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.
ReplyDeleteCACOL 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)
Date Published: 09/21/09
ReplyDelete21st September 2009 Press Release
TIME TO OFFLOAD AONDOAKAA
Ever since his appointment as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice for the Federation, Chief Michael Aondoakaa, SAN, has portrayed himself as grossly incompetent and a moral misfit for the position. His background as an ally, associate and Counsel to several highly-placed politicians and public officers facing corruption charges easily compromised him and fingered him as having a vested interest in specific cases. Nigerians and the international community cannot forget his ignoble role in the summary dismissal of the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. However, the events of the last few days have proved that this chameleon has yet to display its worst colour.
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Aondoakaa has proved to be a man of even more despicable character as he now appears to be backtracking from a public statement we all heard him make in the full glare of local and international media. He definitely said that three former state governors, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (Lagos State), Obong Victor Attah (Akwa Ibom State) and Chief James Onanefe Ibori of (Delta State), had been investigated and exonerated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over the V-Mobile telecommunications transaction. EFCC quickly contradicted this statement and denied that it has come to such a determination. These former governors are under the searchlight of the London Met Police in a case involving the cornering, for private use, of shares of the telecoms company that they had used public funds to acquire for their states.
Aondoakaa’s unilaterally-issued reprieve for the governors, while the London Met Police is still conducting investigations, is an international embarrassment that has further cast aspersions on the resolve of the administration of President Umar Yar’Adua to fight corruption. How can Nigeria’s chief law officer be intent on tarnishing the image of Nigeria, presenting her as a den and harbour of untruthful and corrupt leaders and people? No amount of sloganeering about Nigeria being, Good People, Great Nation, will sanitise us when our ambassadors and leaders behave contrarily.
Prior allegations existed that Aondoakaa had, while in private practice, represented the interests of Chief James Ibori, currently facing over 100 counts of corruption-related offences within and outside Nigeria. The Justice Minister was part of the defence team in some of these allegations; and it appears he cannot separate his private interest from national interest. This makes him unsuitable for his position as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. If this latest faux pas in prematurely clearing the three governors is not enough proof that Aondoakaa is grossly unsuitable to hold such an exalted office, then we must all come to accept that President Yar’Adua is part of the conspiracy to protect corrupt public officials, serving and retired.
Afenifere especially disapproves of the AG travelling at public expense to London to defend politicians accused of corruption and money laundering. It makes it appear as if one of this administration’s objectives is to protect and further institutionalise corruption. Otherwise, how can one explain the office of the AG (which is not an investigative office) electing to hinder the job of the London Metropolitan Police and EFCC?
Chief Michael Aondoakaa must be relieved of his post as head of the Justice Ministry and his post reassigned to a nobler person.
CHIEF REUBEN FASORANTI, OFR
Afenifere Leader