A vocal Lagos Lawyer, Mr Ebun-Olu Adegoruwa has called for the immediate resignation of the Minister of Transport, Mr Rotimi Amaechi and his counterpart in the Ministry of Technology, Dr Ogbonanya Onu from the Buhari Government following their alleged involvement in bribe scandal involving some judges that were arrested last month.
It will be recalled that Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, in a letter dated October 18, which he forwarded to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Mahmud Mohammed and the National Judicial Council, NJC, specifically said the Minister of Transport, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi and Minister of Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, attempted to bribe him to give a favourable judgments to APC on Ekiti and Rivers state election cases respectively.
Adegoruwa’s renewed call for Amaechi and Onu’s resignation came on the heels of ‘temporal step aside’ of the All Progressives Congress, National Legal Adviser, Dr Muiz Banire, SAN to allow the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to investigate N500,000 he gave to a Judge of the National Industrial Court, Justice James Agbadu-Fishim.
“The people of Nigeria want the resignations of the minister for transport, Mr Rotimi Amaechi and the minister for Technology, Dr Ogbonanya Onu . Since the names of Mr Amaechi , Onu were mentioned in relation to the bribery of judges and now that the judges have been suspended, It is good for the them to resigned from the Federal Executive Council” the Lawyer said.
Adegoruwa, who spoke exclusively to The Complete News via the telephone last night said he believed that the money Banire gave the Federal Judge must have been a gift and not a bribe has been peddled in certain quarters.
He said, “I have known Mr. Banire for sometime now. Until the investigation proves anything contrary, I believe the story that he probably gave a gift; it may not have been a bribe.
“ It is for the EFCC to investigate the matter and show us otherwise. He(Banire) claimed that he has never appeared before the Judge and never conducted any case before him. We are waiting for EFCC to bring any evidence that the money was a bribe”.
Recall that Dr Muiz Banire yesterday wrote the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC , Chief John Oyegun, informing him of his decision to step aside pending the conclusion of his investigation by the anti-graft agency.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who also copied the Vice-President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo and the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, (SAN) also quit his membership of the Presidential Committee on the electoral reform.
In the letter titled, “Offer to Step Aside as National Legal Adviser Pending Conclusion of Investigation of My Person by the EFCC”, Banire wrote:
“On Saturday, the 29th day of October, 2016, I read online, a publication titled “APC National Legal Adviser, Muiz Banire, Allegedly paid Federal Judge =N=500k”.
“ I was not only shocked by the purport of the publication against my person, but extremely disturbed by its negative propagandist effect on our Party, the Government it leads at the Federal level, and, above all, our signature programme of anti-corruption in public life.
“I, therefore, immediately on the same day, wrote a letter which was delivered to, and acknowledged by the EFCC on Monday, the 31st day of October, 2016, submitting myself to investigation on the allegation, and offering to visit the EFCC offices in Lagos on Tuesday, the 1st day of November, 2016 to be interrogated as part of that investigation.
“ A copy of the said letter of request is enclosed herewith. Ostensibly, due to the constraints of its heavy work schedule, my request to attend the EFCC to be interrogated on the allegation did not receive attention until Thursday, the 3rd day of November, 2016.
““The allegation, as I have come to understand it, is that a Statement of Account of one Judge of the National Industrial Court, the Honourable Justice J. T. Agbadu-Fishim, who is the subject of an ongoing EFCC’s investigation, contained a June 2013 entry of a “=N=500,000.00” payment ascribed as being from one “Dr. Muiz B”.
“I did not hesitate in confirming that this probably referred to me because I remember that about three years ago, I received a text message from someone I recollected at the time to be an old colleague in my days as a lecturer at the University of Lagos, an ‘Agbadu-Fishim’ who was then a Research Fellow at the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, informing me of the death and funeral programme of his mother.
“The last contact (of any sort) I had with this person before that text would have been about fourteen years earlier, that is, before I was appointed Special Adviser to the Governor of Lagos State at the inception of civil rule in 1999 (now seventeen years ago).
“As far as assumption goes, he was to me, at the time of his contact, still employed by the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies; he never informed me that he had moved on to become a Judge of any court in Nigeria, and I had never throughout my own career as a legal practitioner or public functionary ever appeared in any case before any judge whatsoever at the National Industrial Court, or attended any function of the National Industrial Court, that would have put me on notice that the Agbadu-Fishim I used to know had become a judge of the National Industrial Court.
“Indeed, it was with considerable difficulty that I was able to eventually recognise his face when I eventually saw him again (after seventeen years of my leaving the University of Lagos) on my attendance at the EFCC on Thursday the 3rd day of November, 2016.”
“When I received the said message and his information to me of the death and funeral programme of his mother in which he solicited for financial assistance in a tone suggesting great distress, I considered it necessary to assist an old friend in dire need. Without any further prompting, he sent his account details to me and I made a cash gift of N500,000.00 to him.
“As I have now come to realize after my interactions with the EFCC, that payment is being investigated from the angle of whether or not it was to influence the receiver in the performance of his judicial duties on the Bench of the National Industrial Court.
“This is perfectly understandable to me within the general context of the investigation in which the allegation had arisen, and considering that I have lately come to also realize that two of my colleagues in chambers had been involved as defence counsel in two cases before the subject judge amongst twelve cases in all they have ever done at the Industrial Court since inception.
“My review of the two case files which I came to be conscious of after my interactions with the EFCC shows that one of them was amicably settled between the parties for a sum less than N1.2m, thereby technically losing the case, whilst they won the other and that the combined professional fees (net of taxes) for the two cases was less than N2m,” he explained.
Banire, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), however said “While protesting my innocence, and will therefore do everything within legal limits to defend myself, I have, from the first instance, become aware of the allegation, offered my full cooperation to the EFCC and will continue to cooperate with, and give it all the assistance it may require of me in the course of its ongoing investigation into the matter.
“I have gone to the above length so that other members of the National Working Committee of our Party may become fully apprised of the allegation and the facts surrounding it, at least, as I have come to know/understand them. It is equally important to state that the said judge under one guise or the other solicited and collected from several other lawyers with not less than nine senior advocates involved as at the last count. The said judge does not deny the fact of solicitation equally.
“My concern for the name and image of the party has become heightened following the frenzy of press reports (allegedly based on undisclosed EFCC sources) that have followed my interrogative visits to the EFCC all of which have not failed to play up the fact of my being the National Legal Adviser of our party, the ruling party. I have, throughout my life, believed in the primacy of the whole over its constituent parts, and, therefore, in the importance of building and doing everything possible to preserve the institution over and above the personal interest of any individual within that institution.
“For me, this Party, our Party, and the government which it now leads at the federal level stands for something beyond any individual interest; I see it as the last beckon of hope for our long-suffering people. Whatever is necessary to be done to preserve it and ensure its effectiveness in order for it to attain and achieve its full potential must be done; and where that calls for our individual sacrifice, we must willingly offer it. That is the challenge before all of us, who genuinely seek a change in the pitiable situation of our country, Nigeria.
“Therefore, as surreal as I find the allegation to be, I will not stand by and watch it negatively affect the name of the Party. I will rather stand by, even in the unfair circumstance I have narrated, than allow the party that I (with you and our other leaders and members across the length and breadth of Nigeria) have sacrificed brain and brawn to build-up into the formidable party it has become as a potential tool for the political re-engineering of Nigeria, and the emancipation of our peoples from want in the midst of plenty, spreading illiteracy in the age of knowledge, the ravages of commonplace diseases that have become history in other climes, and such other manifestations of poor governance that have been and remained our lot, even after 56 years of independence from colonialism.
“Mr. Chairman, Sir, it is in view of the above circumstances that I wish to temporarily step aside from my position on our National Working Committee as the National Legal Adviser of our Party until completion and final outcome of the EFCC investigation involving my person.”
