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MICHAEL AONDOAKAA: The Attorney-General has gone mad again.

September 12, 2009

As always, the Attorney General of Nigeria, Michael Aondoakaa, is in the news again for behaving badly. This time around, his public malfeasance bothers on dubious, convoluted and nonsensical legal arguments designed to absolve former governors James Ibori, David Attah and Bola Tinubu of any wrongdoing as alleged by the British Metropolitan Police.



Shortly after the Metropolitan Police announced the criminal indictments of the above individuals along with the president’s special adviser, David Edevbie, the attorney-general immediately absolved the former governors of any wrongdoing based on EFCC’s investigations.  The EFCC has since rubbished the attorney-general’s claim for reasons that I suspect have more to do with disagreements over the sharing of the bribe money than any sense of professional responsibility on the part of Farida Waziri and her “bribe warriors” The notorious attorney-general went on to blame Nuhu Ribadu, the now exiled former chairman of the EFCC for the indictment of the former governors. 

I have never been surprised by this element called Michael Aondoakaa. Nothing about him surprises despite his clownish behavior. I do not expect anything good to come from him. Nigerians know this and those who appointed him to this sensitive position did so for reasons that have nothing to do with the typical considerations for that position. A review of the actual responsibilities that the attorney-general has discharged since assuming office would make a mob enforcer jealous. I am however perplexed by the growing foolishness of the man, judging by his increasingly bizarre views of national and international laws. The man speaks to Nigerians and the international community as if they are not capable of thinking for themselves. He makes his pronouncements as if there is something so epiphanic about them and therefore outside the realm of human understanding. But the fact is that, most of his legal arguments are purely irritating, pedestrian and unintelligent.
    
In attacking the British indictment of the three former governors, the Attorney-General tried to whip up patriotic sentiments by describing the indictments as a usurpation of Nigeria’s jurisdiction. The evidence tendered by the attorney-general for his delusional argument was the fact that the “ingredients of the alleged offences occurred in Nigeria” Stripped bare of legalese, the meaning of the attorney-general’s tongue-in-cheek argument is that Britain has no right to try Nigerians or any other person for offences that were committed in Nigeria. Could the offences of laundering the proceeds of crime through the British banking system have been committed in Nigeria? When did the British banking system become resident in Nigeria? 

The Attorney-General committed two legal “harakiris” with his claim. The first is that there are several laws allowing countries to assume jurisdiction for offences committed outside their national borders. The Criminal Code of Canada allows the government to prosecute individuals in Canada for acts or omissions that would constitute an offence in Canada if they occurred in Canada. The provision allowing non-American victims of torture to sue for compensation in the United States is another example of this doctrine of assumed jurisdiction. If the attorney-general needs further reminder, he should look at the case Anthony Enahoro and co brought against the Nigerian government in the United States. All the ingredients of the alleged offence of torture occurred in Nigeria, yet the United States court assumed jurisdiction. I wonder why the attorney-general refused to make the same foolish arguments before the American court. I guess he realized there is a limit to foolishness. The recently settled case of Wiwa v. Shell involved offences committed in Nigeria but the matter was litigated in the United States. I guess no other lawyer had the epiphany of knowing that the United States court lacked jurisdiction because the offences happened in Nigeria.
 
The second harakiri and the more significant is the argument that the “ingredients of the alleged offences occurred in Nigeria” When you realize that these former governors have been charged with the offense of laundering the proceeds of crime through the British banking system, you start to understand the depth of the attorney-general’s legal depravity and intellectual shallowness. If Britain does not have the jurisdiction to try these individuals for laundering the proceeds of crime through its banking system, can the attorney-general stand up and tell the whole world who does. You would expect this to be a very simple matter but nothing is ever simple in Nigeria, especially when the underlying consideration for a public official is the amount of bribe on offer.

The funny thing is that the average British lawyer will not be foolish enough to argue before a British court that it lacks jurisdiction to try these individuals for the offence of laundering money through the British banking system because the ingredients of the offence happened outside Britain. They will not do so because the argument is palpably wrong, there is no such doctrine in law and there is no legal precedent or law in support of it. A lawyer who makes such an argument would be asked by the presiding judge for supporting law and failure or inability to draw the court’s attention to the supporting law will leave the lawyer in a situation of utter embarrassment, one in which he/she would have been better off being found naked in a market place. Such a conduct will be met with a silent but stern stare from the presiding judge and over the shoulder looks by lawyers who know what they are doing.  
  
What is more disturbing about this element called Michael Aondoakaa is that in substantive terms, he makes no pretence about being the attorney-general of the nation. He has no problem letting the whole world know that his main responsibility is to ensure that the actual responsibilities of the attorney-general – law enforcement - are never carried out. His conduct is a monumental disgrace to the legal profession in Nigeria and calls into question the quality of legal education he received. To stop the further erosion of confidence in our lawyers, legal profession and education, it is time for the Nigerian Bar Association to do something about Michael Aondoakaa. In some other environments, the professional body would, at the very minimum, compel the attorney-general to take professional courses in order to mitigate the obvious deficiencies in his legal reasoning. But Nigeria is a different environment, an environment where thieves are chiefs and morons and barons.   

Majek Adega
[email protected]                 

 

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