Mohammed Adoke (SAN), a former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, has accused Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo of deliberately using the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, against him.
Adoke said thin in his book titled Burden of Service: Reminiscences of Nigeria’s Former Attorney-General.
According to Adoke, he suspected that he incurred the wrath of Osinbajo after alleging that the Vice-President benefited from a $16m legal fee that saw the Federal Government recover $65m from indicted companies many years ago.
The former AGF said he EFCC chairman was probably being used by the Vice-President “to get his pound of flesh.”
Adoke had in a 2016 interview with THISDAY spoke on a Halliburton case, when the Federal Government under former President Goodluck Jonathan retained the services of Nigerian lawyers to prosecute foreign companies involved in bribery over a Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas project.
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Adoke stated, “In the Pfizer case, the amount recovered was $65m, but Pfizer, in addition, paid the lawyers the sum of $16m as fees.
“In that interview, I mentioned the names of the lawyers who got paid by Pfizer to include Chief J.B. Daudu, Prof. Osinbajo and a host of other Nigerian lawyers, including Mrs Mariam Uwais, now a Special Assistant to the President on Social Investment Programme in the Office of the Vice-President.”
According to him, their fees were paid to them by Pfizer through an associate of Osinbajo, Mr Tunde Irukera, who is now the Director-General of the Consumer Protection Council.
Adoke added, “I was told that Osinbajo was very bitter that I mentioned his name. He didn’t fancy being portrayed as having benefited from certain transactions as he sought to maintain a clean public image. It appeared I had inadvertently blown open that holy lid.”
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