Tuesday,
September 10, 2019 / 11:25AM / OpEd by Reuben Abati
/ Header Image Credit: Independent.ng
The Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Administration in Nigeria (2010 -
2015) has generated quite a number of post-tenure publications which
significantly, in varying degrees of articulation, veracity and delivery shed
light on key developments during that momentous phase in Nigerian politics. The
books under reference offer accounts of individual experiences or
outsider perspectives, but altogether, they stand out as remarkable
contributions to the growth of the bibliography on governance, politics,
democracy and sociology in Nigeria. They include, in this particular regard,
Reno Omokri, Facts vs. Fiction: The Story of the Jonathan Years,
Chibok, 2015 and the Conspiracies (2017); Olusegun Adeniyi, Against
the Run of Play: How an incumbent President was Defeated in Nigeria (2017);
Bolaji Abdullahi, On A Platter of Gold (2017); Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, Fighting Corruption is Dangerous: The Story behind the
Headlines (2018) and Goodluck Jonathan, My Transition Hours
(2018).
There is in addition a number of pamphlets, scores of hack
writing (which I do not consider worthy of mention) and essays in academic
journals around the world which subject the Jonathan Years to scrutiny. The
review of a President's tenure, or the telling of stories by both insiders and
outsiders in a government ultimately provide hitherto unavailable information,
beam a searchlight on history and provide a platform for engaging specific
questions of governance and accountability. That this tradition, taken for
granted in advanced democracies is beginning to gain ground in Nigeria, is a
welcome development. The outpouring of books on the Jonathan administration in
Nigeria from both participants and observers alike should be understandable
given the historic and controversial circumstances of that administration and
its exit.
The latest contribution in this regard is the publication of
Mohammed Bello Adoke's Burden of Service: Reminiscences of Nigeria's
former Attorney-General (London/New York: Clink Street, 2019), 270 pp. The
book is due for official release on September 16/24, but copies are already in
circulation through Amazon.com internationally and locally, through Roving
Heights Books in Lagos. It is a semi-autobiographical book, a reflection by
Adoke on his role as Attorney General and Minister of Justice (2010 - 2015)
during the Jonathan administration, his take on his own legacies in that role
and his ideas about the reform of the justice administration system as well as
governance in Nigeria. In this book, Mohammed Adoke also practically writes
back, and I use that term advisedly, in relation to the major issue that seems
to have hovered around his service to Nigeria, namely his role in the
controversial OPL 245 dealings, ordinarily known as the Malabu Scandal.
In Burden of Service, Adoke tells his own side of the story in
a far more comprehensive and detailed manner than he has done hitherto. He
pleads his innocence, and accentuates his undiluted commitment to Nigeria's
national interest contrary to the yet unproven allegations against him.
When the Buhari administration assumed office in 2015, it
reminded Nigerians that the new government was determined to take measures to
strengthen the Nigerian economy, fight corruption and address the menace of
insecurity in the country. Exactly as promised, the government reinvigorated
the war against corruption as it launched an onslaught on persons who had
served in the Jonathan administration. It was in this context that Mohammed
Adoke's name was mentioned in connection with the probe into the management of
the dispute over Oil Prospecting License 245 (OPL 245), one of Nigeria's most
fertile and enormously endowed oil fields, which had been in dispute from the
Obasanjo administration to that of Jonathan. The state's allegation was that
national interest had been subverted on the altar of personal gains. Adoke went
to court in Nigeria to argue against charges that he had betrayed his country
and to insist that the state was out to witch-hunt him, whereas he had done no
wrong.
In 2018, the Federal High Court, Abuja presided over by
Honourable Justice Binta Nyako ruled that insofar as Adoke was carrying out the
lawful directives/approvals of the President acting in accordance with his
executive powers under Section 5 of the Constitution, he could not be held
personally liable for his role in the implementation of the OPL 245 Settlement
Agreement of 2011 and therefore had no case to answer. Adoke kept explaining
his own side of the story in newspaper interviews and comments. But he remains
in exile ostensibly out of fear for his life. After he left office, he
proceeded to the Netherlands to study for a degree leading to the award of an
Advanced LLM in Public International Law at the prestigious University of
Leiden. While he was on that programme, a group of international investigators,
under a Mutual Legal Assistance framework, working with the Nigerian
authorities kept him under watch as a result of all the allegations made
against him by the authorities in Nigeria. He felt haunted.
He tells us in the Introduction to this book that as Christmas
2016 approached, he thought of ending it all. "Being hunted for what I did not
do felt like a death sentence on its own. It is time to force my exit from this
world, I told myself, ....Death, rather than life, seemed very attractive to me
now.... (But) then I came to my senses" (p. 1). In other words, he eventually
changed his mind and refused to commit suicide. He decided that rather than
help his traducers to get away with negative stories about him, he would live to
tell his own story by himself. This is the motivation for this book. Adoke
submits that public service comes with a burden, a burden he understands and is
willing to carry no matter the odds. "I did my best for my country", he
declares. This book, Burden of Service is the product of that resolve, a kind
of cathartic, ameliorative therapy; that is: his conviction that whereas public
service may come as a burden, and there may be persecution designed by
traducers, telling the truth heals all wounds and the truth invariably
outdistances and exposes falsehood.
For readers who may be in a hurry to read Adoke's side of this
story with regard to OPL 245, see Part II of the book, devoted fully to "The
OPL 245 Conundrum" at Chapter Six, appropriately titled: "The Facts of the
Matter" (pp. 53 - 67); Chapter Seven: "The Witch-Hunt" (pp .68-78); Chapter
Eight: "The Witch-Hunters" (pp. 79-87), and Chapter Nine: "The Mischief" (pp.
88-102). In these chapters, Mohammed Adoke lays bare the manner and details of
his travails. He talks about his role in the OPL 245 Settlement
Agreement, and the role played by a certain Mohammed Sani Abacha and his
collaborators, or rather the Abacha family, the Obasanjo government, arbitral
proceedings leading to a Settlement Agreement, the role of the Dutch and the
Italians, his harassment by the Nigerian authorities - raids on his houses and
the home of his brother, the destruction of his practice, and the hostility
towards him by security operatives and others. In Chapter Eight, he identifies
those he calls the "witch-hunters". This is a chapter that should be read by
the EFCC as an organization, Senator Ali Ndume, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo,
the Abachas and someone Adoke refers to as a "diminutive lawyer... who is a
darling of the Nigerian media." In Chapter Nine, Adoke says he seeks to "ask
pertinent questions and set the records straight." This Chapter is
essentially a response to all the charges levelled against him by Nigeria's
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). In Chapter Ten, Adoke writes
about "My Vindication". He says: "I have won my case against the Federal
Government in court...not a dime has been traced to me" (p.113). Thus,
Adoke's book is in these parts, lawyerly; it reads in part like a summary of
evidence and a brief of argument.
But this is not a book entirely about self-advocacy, OPL 245 and
allegations of fraud and bribery. Adoke uses the book to give an account of his
stewardship as Nigeria's Chief Law Officer - beyond the controversies. But
before he does so, he takes us, very early in the book, on a journey to see how
he emerged as Attorney General and Minister of Justice, through a call of
destiny -what he calls "a missed opportunity" at first and then in Chapter Two, "The Appointment". And in Chapter Three, "The Baptism". In Chapters
Four and Five, in a strictly autobiographical tone, he offers us a glimpse into
the journey of his life, from humble beginnings to the ascending heights of
senior advocate and public life. Adoke calls himself "The Boy From Nagazi (p.
39)". Nagazi is an Okene village in Kogi State in Nigeria's North Central
region. Ethnically, the author is of the Ebirra ethnic stock, one of Nigeria's
many ethnic minorities. Adoke tells quite a bit of his personal and family
story in a humble tone and with details that many young persons will find
motivational.
Students of recent Nigerian history would perhaps be more
interested in Part III of the book which deals with major highlights of the
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan administration, specifically the internal controversies
within the government and the PDP, the politics of Jonathan's interest in a
second term in office, the 2015 Presidential election and Jonathan's transition
out of power. Chapter Twelve is titled "The Buhari Test", dealing with the same
familiar questions that are still in the public domain in Nigeria: "Did Gen.
Buhari really obtain a secondary school certificate? Should he be disqualified
from participating in the presidential race?" (p. 125). Adoke reports
tellingly: "In the fullness of time, though, President Buhari would come to
realise and accept the whole truth: that God used me, and two other
high-profile Nigerians whom I will not name for confidential reasons, to make
sure he was not disqualified by the courts from running in 2015. The two individuals
have like me, also suffered indignity in the hands of Buhari and his men. It
must be emphasised here, though that I did not oppose the disqualification
because I wanted to help Buhari. Rather, I was being faithful to the
Constitution". (p. 126). Subsequently, hawks within the Jonathan Presidency
insisted that Buhari should be given the "Pinochet treatment" and be put on
trial for his past "misdeeds" in order to stop him from contesting the 2015
Presidential election. President Jonathan rejected that suggestion outright and
opposed the idea of playing "bad politics".
In other post-Jonathan publications, many accounts have been
given of how and why President Goodluck Jonathan conceded victory to President
Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. In Chapter Thirteen: "The Historic Concession",
Muhammad Adoke offers what I, as a participant in all of that drama myself,
consider the most truthful and authoritative account that has yet been written
so far on the matter. Part IV of the book: "The Challenges, The Controversies" is devoted mainly to Adoke's interventions as Attorney General and Minister of
Justice. The issues covered include- "The Impeachment Menace" (Chapter 15)
dealing with whether or not the Federal Government should support the plan by
the PDP-dominated House of Assembly in Nassarawa state to impeach Tanko
Al-Makura (APC) as Governor of Nassarawa State; (2) whether or not the
President after declaring a state of emergency in some local governments in the
Northern Eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states in May 2013, should
have gone ahead to remove the Local Government Chairmen and Governors in the
affected States (Chapter 16); (3) the judgment debt scam that the author
observed as an established tradition in the Ministry of Justice and how he addressed
it (Chapter 17); (4) the Halliburton and Siemens bribery scandals (Chapter
18); (5) the Bakassi Handover (Chapter 19) and a number of other
controversies - "Pardon for Alamiyeseigha"; "the Justice Salami
Saga"; "The Gulf War Windfall"; "the Azura Power Project"; and "The
Oyinlola and Aregbesola Saga".
In Part V, titled "The Footprints", Adoke embarks on a bit of "advertisements for myself" to borrow Norman Mailer's phrase or as Africans
would put it, "a lizard-like act of self-congratulation" - if nobody will
praise me, I will praise myself! And so he outlines how as Attorney General and
Minister of Justice, he functioned strictly as a constitutional purist and
defended both the rule of law and the national interest. The specific
episodes on which he reflects include the recovery of the Abacha loot, the
Ajaokuta Steel Settlement; reforming the justice system, the Evidence Act 2011,
the Freedom of information Act 2011; The Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011; the
Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 and other reform laws (2011- 2015).
Adoke brings this book to a close in the remaining two chapters by drawing
attention, as he looks back and forward, to specific steps that may still need
to be taken to strengthen the justice administration and delivery process, and
the constitutional framework for Nigeria's system of government.
Were it possible to insist that every senior public officer must
write a book after office, I would insist that this should be a compulsory
pre-condition for appointment to office. Adoke remarkably is the first Attorney
General and Minister of Justice in Nigeria to give this kind of account, to the
best of my knowledge. And it is a refreshing contribution, an even-handed,
authoritative, compelling, and well-written account of his stewardship and
experience. The controversies and the responses in kind that this book may
generate can only further enrich our understanding of what transpired in
Nigeria's recent politics. Burden of Service is packaged like a supermarket, with
something in it for every reader. The compelling take-aways for me, are the
issues of service, leadership, friendship and loyalty, governance, the rule of
law and Nigeria's peculiar politics, and I am reminded, reading it
thematically, of James Comey's A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and
Leadership (2017). Whereas Comey, former US FBI Director, had
difficulties working with President Donald Trump, Adoke as Nigeria's Attorney
General seems to have had an excellent working relationship with a President
Goodluck Jonathan who believed in the rule of
law.
Previous Posts by Dr.
Reuben Abati
1.
Peter
Drucker And The Things That Changed
2. FBI,
Nigerian Fraudsters and Other Stories
3. P
and ID vs. Nigeria: A Review by Reuben Abati
4. When
Soldiers Do Police Work: Disaster
6. The Speech
Buhari Didn't Make
7.
The People’s
Revolt in Algeria and Sudan
8. The Obasanjo
Bombshell - Abati
9. Ogun 2019
Politics And Deployment Of Violence - My Encounter, Reuben Abati
10. Chief Anthony
Anenih: A Personal And Political Portrait
11. The "Oshiomhole
Must Go" Coalition
12. Beyond Fayose: The Future Of Ekiti State
13. The "Spirit Of Error" In Nigerian Politics
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