The falsehood behind the Yar’Adua administration’s avowed “Rule of Law” was today revealed before the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja in a multi million Dollars Oil Prospecting License suit where the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice; Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, who as the chief legal officer of the federation, ought to ensure that the order of court is obeyed, took steps to frustrate an order of court.
The Federal Government recently revoked OPL 323 which it awarded to the Korean National Oil Corporation in August 2005. The revocation was executed while the court had granted an order of interim injunction against the Attorney General and President Umaru Yar’Adua restraining them from revoking the oil prospecting license pending the determination of the substantive matter.
At the resumed hearing on the matter this morning, counsel to the Korean National Oil Corporation; Mr. Robert Clarke informed the court that the action of the Attorney General in the revocation issue is highly suspicious. The Lawyer told the court that Aondoakaa bypassed all legal rules to write directly to the Acting Director of the Directorate of Petroleum Resources as if the directive to revoke the OPL 323 was from the President. He further informed the court that the correspondence from the Attorney General was at the instance of Chief Tony Annenih, the former Chairman of the Board of Trustee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and presently Chairman of the Board of the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA).
Chief Anenih, the court was told, has extensive interest in Owel Petroleum Services Nigeria Limited which is one of the Local Content Vehicles in the OPL 323. The court was told that the NPA Board Chairman, through his lawyer; Dr. Alex Izinyon, on the 5th of March, wrote a letter to the Attorney General requesting for the License to be revoked and that the Attorney General attached the letter to the one he authored to the Acting Director of the DPR wherein he ordered that the license be revoked and the Signature Bonus of about 310 million Dollars paid by the Korean National Oil Corporation to be refunded before the 25th of last month. The AGF’s letter was dated 19th March 2009.
The order of the court which granted interim injunction against the AGF and the President was granted on the 12th of March 2009 and the Attorney General was represented in court by a counsel from his chambers.
According to Clark, “Even in the worst of Military regimes in this country, no Attorney General had acted in this manner. What powers does a mere politician in the person of Chief Annenih have to breathe down on the neck of the Attorney General and compel him to write that letter? I have never seen this kind of thing. It is a sad day for this country”
He challenged the court not to let this gross violation of the rule of law by the officer whose duty it is to ensure that the orders of the court are obeyed by the Federal Government go unpunished.
Justice Mustapha Abdullahi agreed with Mr. Robert Clarke and ordered the Attorney General to come personally and explain why he over reached the court by tampering with the res despite his order on interim injunction.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });