Saharareporters can authoritatively report that the Umar Yar’adua machinery has perfected a plan to spare all corrupt ex-governors, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and top officials of his administration from prosecution for corrupt enrichment. Each official has been advised to scout a corrupt high court judge willing to issue an order restraining the official’s arrest or prosecution. Yar’adua’s attorney general will then order the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to desist from harassing any official who is protected by this “bought order,” revealed our source with insight into the workings of the Yar’adua “government.” Added the source: “I can tell you that a lot of former governors, ministers, special aides to Obasanjo and even the former president himself have paid off judges who have written such orders."
As part of the general plot, Attorney General Michael Andoakaa met with Orji Kalu and James Ibori two weeks ago to guarantee them that the EFCC would be thoroughly emasculated. James Ibori, whose money laundering case in London is coming up in October, needed the Attorney General’s assurance that the EFCC will be reined in to prevent the anti-corruption agency feeding the London Metropolitan Police damaging information about Ibori’s massive looting of Delta State funds. Should Ibori lose the case in London, he faces the prospect of forfeiting his worldwide assets. A few weeks ago, the Southwark Crown Court in London ordered the assets frozen.
Andoakaa’s secret meeting with the two ex-governors was a follow up to an earlier meeting between Umar Musa Yar'adua, James Ibori, Orji Kalu and Peter Odili. The former governors asked Yar'adua to save their neck from what they referred to as a "rampaging EFCC".
The latest meetings took place after the collapse of Yar’adua’s initial attempt to emasculate the EFCC by stripping the agency of the power to prosecute corrupt public officials and individuals. Under that plan, the power to prosecute would be exercised solely by Aondakaa who had cut a deal with many corrupt former officials. That plan backfired when the public kicked against it, forcing the government to retreat. Even so, Yar'adua and the former governors did not abandon the idea but merely returned to the drawing board to come up with a different strategy.
After the second round of meetings with embattled former governors, James Ibori hopped on a plane to South Africa from where he disappeared into thin air. His escape, Saharareporters has learned, was at the instance of Yar’adua who asked him to watch the unfolding scenario from a safe distance. Yar’adua, whose campaign expenses were underwritten by Ibori to the tune of several billions of naira, is the biggest single beneficiary of James Ibori's loot.
The latest plot to checkmate the EFCC is well choreographed at the highest levels.
Orji Kalu's corruption trial is designed to be the first test of the plot. The attorney general reached an understanding with Kalu's lawyers to officially protest to him “about the EFCC’s high handedness and disregard for the principles of law and order.” Kalu’s lawyers wrote to Aondakaa claiming that the EFCC had disregarded an order by an Abia High Court presided over by a certain Justice Kalu(a relative of Orji Kalu) barring the EFCC from arresting the ex-governor after his immunity might have run out. Citing this alleged contempt for the courts, Kalu’s lawyers asked Aondakaa to order that, “in the interest of justice,” their client is discharged from trial.
The action whole ploy was arranged without the attorney general inviting the EFCC to state its side of the story. The attorney general replied almost immediately assuring Kalu's lawyers that he would intervene. He did by sending the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) to appear in court without the benefit of being briefed on Kalu's case file or any prior consultation with the EFCC.
This curious action led to an open altercation in court between the EFCC's lawyer and the DPP. Following the public embarrassment and public relations disaster, the attorney general beat another retreat, but not until he had demanded that Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, head of EFCC, axe the agency’s lawyer with whom the DPP had had an altercation. He also asked that the EFCC apologize to his office for being "rude to the AGF".
Saharareporters has been reliably informed that when Orji Kalu’s case comes up tomorrow before the Federal High Court, the DPP is expected to file a nolle prosequi, indicating the government’s decision to halt Kalu’s prosecution. This move is to be made under the pretext that the current regime believes in the "rule of law".
Meanwhile, an examination of the so-called order by the Abia High Court shows that it contained nothing that should prevent the EFCC from arresting Orji Kalu for corruption. Instead, it was an order granting Orji Kalu "leave to enforce his fundamental human rights". A legal scholar who has studied the order told Saharareporters that it was so weak that Orji Kalu had to flee from Nigeria before the expiration of his tenure as Abia State governor. It is public knowledge that he handed over hurriedly to the current governor, Theodore Orji, three days before May 29, 2007. He then fled abroad.
Kalu returned to Nigeria only after Yar’adua promised him a position on the so-called Government of National Unity (GNU). Interestingly, Kalu’s lawyers never mentioned the so-called order of the Abia High Court after his arrest and arraignment before a Federal High court. A legal analyst told Saharareporters that if Orji Kalu was sure that the EFCC was violating a High Court order, his lawyers would have approached the same court to ask that the EFCC Chairman Nuhu Ribadu be committed to prison for contempt of court.
One inside source told Saharareporters that contrary to the AGF's position in his response to Orji Kalu's lawyers, the EFCC actually obtained a "warrant of arrest" from a Federal High Court judge before picking up the former governor. They also pointed to the exparte motion filed by Orji Kalu before another Federal High Court, where he sought the leave of the court to proceed on a non-existent surgery for his wife in a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
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As Saharareporters reported a few weeks ago,the hospital denied that Orji’s wife was scheduled for surgery, and accused Orji Kalu of forging the purported letter that claimed his wife was due for brain surgery.
Contrary to his public stance on the "rule of law and zero tolerance for corruption" Yar'adua is beholden to the most corrupt cabal in Nigeria. A public affairs analyst and activist, Dr. Baba Adam, told Saharareporters that Yar'adua and Attorney General Andoakaa are merely playing what Americans call a game of “bad cop, good cop.” As Yar’adua publicly pretends that he is committed to protecting the rule of law and fighting corruption in public, he is actually doing everything humanly possible to protect his former President Olusegun Obasanjo and ex-governors who stole the nation blind.
A source of worry is the coziness between Yar'adua and those fighting to crush the anti-corruption war. Wole Olanipekun, who is representing Yar'adua at the ongoing elections tribunal, and current Attorney General Andoakaa, together filed a case at the Supreme Court asking for the nullification of EFCC. In the case of Attorney General of Benue State versus the Attorney General of the Federation coming up in October before the Supreme Court, the AGF will be in the awkward position being plaintiff and defendant in the case. Yar'adua's official and unofficial lawyers are involved in a legal maneuver to render the EFCC impotent. In effect, Yar’adua is fostering the mess while feigning an interest in combating corruption.
Attorney General Aondoakaa (SAN) wants Orji Kalu discharged the same way Dr. Julius Makanjuola, Obasanjo's cousin and former permanent secretary charged with stealing more than 400 million naira, was discharged through the intervention of the office of the Attorney General during Obasanjo's regime. Coincidentally, Nuhu Ribadu was carrying out Makanjuola’s prosecution, but the then attorney general took over under the pretext that the case would be refilled. It never happened.
With Orji Kalu discharged from trial tomorrow, Saminu Turaki too has reached out to the attorney general to intervene on his behalf. Saharareporters can report that Turaki has been shopping for buyers for the two oil blocks he has held in trust for former President Obasanjo. Since his release Saminu Turaki has been in Lagos holding meetings with former president Obasanjo and unnamed oil companies who are trying to buy off the two oil blocks.
While Yar'adua pretends that he is for the rule of law, he has been fingered as one of those who worked on a plan to cover up Patricia Etteh, the embattled Speaker of the House of Representatives. The so-called 9-member committee constituted to investigate the speaker’s expenditure of N628 million in residential renovations has been briefed to clear the speaker of any wrongdoing.
The Nigeria Bar Association under the leadership of Olisa Agbakoba has pitched its tent with Attorney General Aondakaa in his plot to kill the EFCC and sabotage the trial of ex-governors indicted for corruption. Though the Nigeria Bar Association condemned the conduct of the last election, even mobilizing lawyers nationwide on a one-day strike to condemn the elections; it has surprisingly drawn close to the Yar'adua government. The association has even invited Yar’adua to speak at their annual conference in Ilorin, Kwara State.
In return Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) was nominated to Yar'adua's "Electoral Reform Panel". It is not only in politics that Agbakoba is engaging in bizarre acrobatics. He and Richard Akinjide (SAN) recently obtained an exparte order to prevent the investigation of Shell Oil Company. Shell had borrowed $100 million from Fortune International Bank to finance a project and then failed to pay. When the EFCC arrested the oil company’s Managing Director, Shell paid the bank $40 million to ward off the agency’s effort to charge the company with economic sabotage. But with the exparte order obtained to protect Shell, Fortune International Bank, now collapsed, will never be repaid its loans.
The efforts to save corrupt former governors from prosecution remain strong. The first option, spearheaded by Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara, was to get Ribadu removed. The next ploy was the attorney general’s attempt to gut the agency’s prosecutorial powers. This backfired after some pro-EFCC lawyers, including Mr. Femi Falana, President of the West African Bar Association, cited a ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of Federal Government vs. Osahon—where the apex court held that the agency had powers to prosecute.
A decisive plank in the plot to render the EFCC ineffective is the Orji Kalu option. Saharareporters has been told that all the governors being prosecuted or investigated by the EFCC have rushed to state high courts and obtained “orders” prohibiting their trial. Former President Obasanjo, his special assistant on domestic matters, Andy Uba, usurping Vice President Jonathan Goodluck and Yar’adua himself collaborated on designing this “solution.” Many critics have raised questions about the sudden wealth being commanded by both Obasanjo and Uba. Goodluck’s asset declaration, which was made public under pressure, has raised questions about the source of his fortune estimated at $4 million, even though the declaration exclude that of his wife and children. Facing the threat of prosecution, these past and current public officials have been advised to exploit the greed of some judges willing to issue questionable restraining orders for a fee.
We have also learned that both James Ibori and former Edo Governor Lucky Igbinedion escaped from Nigeria on the direct advice of Yar’adua.
According to our source, Yar’adua, Obasanjo and fugitive ex-governors have decided that if EFCC cannot be emasculated directly by the Attorney General, then corrupt judges could be used to whittle down the agency’s ability to act. “I can tell you that Yar’adua and the cabal that installed him is calculating on bribing the Supreme Court judges if it comes to that,” said our source, who is embedded inside the government.
Yar’adua’s challenge now is to figure out how to continue fooling the international community with the falsehood that he loathes corruption. In one of his deceptive public relations gambits, Yar'adua plans to include Nuhu Ribadu on his train when he visits the United Nations General Assembly this month.
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