How Tinubu’s Human Rights-Lawyer Friend Set Him up for Trial

By Gideon Njoku

Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister for Justice during the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, Adoke Bello, has dropped what could be called ‘Da Bomb’.

Adoke who has been on self-exile to fight off what he describes as persecution instead of prosecution by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, sensationally revealed that the prosecution of the APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu,  before the  Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, was the handiwork of a Tinubu friend, who is also a well known Human Rights lawyer.

He also revealed how a presiding officer in the Senate called him to join a couple of others to contribute money to the Buhari Presidential campaign in 2015.

Adoke made these revelations in an interview he has just granted the Premium Times.

Asked about the trial of Tinubu before the Code og Conduct Tribunal, CCT,  at the time,  Adoke said: ” What most people don’t know is that a lot of people who claimed to be close to Bola Tinubu,(are not). A human rights lawyer, was the one that engineered it”

Elaborating, he disclosed: “A particular human rights lawyer was the one going round the political authorities  at the time saying, ‘Is this how you people are going to allow Tinubu? He has stolen Lagos blind. Is this how you are going to allow him take over Nigeria? You people should move against him’. I am happy that Mike Oghiadomhe (former Chief of Staff to Jonathan)  and Ita Ekpenyong (former DG DSS) are still alive” Both were probably  Adoke’s witnesses.

To prove how double-faced some people are,  Adoke said  that, to his surprise, this same human rights lawyer, went back to tell Tinubu that “Adoke is the one after you”, a lie, he disclosed  Tinubu believed to the letter.

On the betrayal of Jonathan by a number of high ranking PDP members during the 2015 Presidential elections, and the allegation that he was one of them,  the former Attorney General dismissed his alleged involvement as a lie from the pit of hell.

Insisting that he stood solidly behind Jonathan till the end,  and was very loyal to him, he said that those making the allegations were same people  who  betrayed Jonathan. His words:

“Most of those who were talking were the same people who contributed money to Buhari’s campaign. I, Muhammad Bello Adoke, never contributed money to Buhari’s campaign.

He, however, revealed, ” A serving member of the National Assembly,  a presiding officer, had called me at the time to say people were contributing money to Buhari’s campaign. I told him that at the first instance,  I don’t have, and if I had, I would not give because that would amount to  treachery and disloyalty. And, if I do that kind of thing, even Buhari himself would not respect me”

Adoke, did not, however,  mention the name of the human rights lawyer who engineered Tunubu’s trial, or the name of the NASS presiding officer who called him about contributing money to Buhari’s campaign. The names, he said, are contained in his book, entitled “The Burden of Service”, billed for publication next  month -July.