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Adoke Gives Malami Seven Days Ultimatum to Withdraw False Evidence, Tender Public Apology
A former Nigerian attorney-general and Minister of Justice, Bello Adoke, has given the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, seven days ultimatum to retract alleged defamatory statements made against him.
Mr Adoke issued the ultimatum on Wednesday through his lawyers led by Paul Erokoro, aSenior Advocate of Nigeria.
The alleged defamatory statements were made at the ongoing hearing of the Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) arbitration case in England.
Mr Adoke also asked Mr Malami to tender a public apology for making statements which he knew to be untrue and defamatory against his person.
Mr Erokoro said Mr Malami’s statements were not true and have negatively affected Mr Adoke’s image because the court proceedings were on live television in Nigeria and on social media around the world.
In the statement, Mr Malami had accused Mr Adoke of having a hand in the failed P&ID agreement, receiving kickback from the deal through former petroleum minister, Dan Etete, and also single-handedly selecting a legal team to represent Nigeria at the arbitration.
“Our client is astounded by your failure to inform the English court that under Nigerian law, any person charged with or accused of a crime MUST be presumed innocent until proven guilty,” the letter said.
“Rather, you pronounced our client guilty, even when you were fully aware that his trial had not even commenced. The Attorney-General’s oath of office includes an undertaking to protect and defend the Nigerian Constitution.
“The constitutional right to fair trial is severely breached when the Attorney-General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria urges the court of a foreign jurisdiction to regard and even pronounce a Nigerian guilty of an offence without a trial. It was your unfortunate and wrongful pronouncement of guilt on our client that emboldened the FRN’s counsel in England to tell the whole world that our client is corrupt.
“This has done incalculable harm to our client’s name, reputation and standing in society. Our client will suffer even more harm if the English Court, misled by your evidence, makes an adverse finding against our client. It is for this, among other reasons that the first duty of the Attorney-General and indeed all counsel, is to the Court,” the letter read in part.
Mr Adoke noted that he became Attorney-General of the Federation on April 6, 2010, while the negotiations for the gas project had been on from 2009, adding that he only became aware of the P&ID matter when the Ministry of Petroleum Resources requested in 2013 that he appoint an arbitrator as well as counsel.
The letter reads in part: “Our client finds it remarkable that you found no fault in the appointment of the arbitrator but found fault with the appointment of counsel, even though the two appointments followed the same process. For this reason, our client is forced to conclude that your vilification of his name is merely a case of giving the dog a bad name in order to hang it.
“Our client asserts that even though he appointed Mr. Shasore as counsel, Mr. Shasore’s legal fees were paid by the administration of President Buhari, long after our client had left office, a fact well known to you.
“It is also on record that our client was not involved in any of the negotiations with P&ID for settlement, which all took place under your watch. The initial proposal for settlement was delivered to President Jonathan. The President referred the matter to our client for his advice. Our client advised the President to leave the matter to the in-coming administration, since the President’s tenure was ending in 8 days.
“You also conceal these facts from the court even though the records have been in your office all along. If our client had been part of any corrupt scheme with P&ID as you claimed in your evidence, surely our client would have jumped at the chance to give P&ID a favourable settlement.”
Mr Adoke argued that the final award was issued in July 2015, months after he had left office.
“Your evidence was therefore unfair and uncharitable to our client because you are aware that all the attempts at settlement with P&ID took place under your tenure as Attorney-General, a fact you freely admitted in your witness statements,” he added.
Mr Adoke argued further that when the government requested information from some banks in the United States Government on all bank accounts owned by former President Goodluck Jonathan and others, it was discovered that he has no foreign account.
He, therefore, called on the minister within the next seven days on receipt of his letter to take necessary steps to correct the misleading and false statements against him.
“Our client demands that you retract the false evidence that you gave to the English Court, regarding him and apologise for the harm done to his name,” he said.
Premium Times
President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to cut off government contracts with billionaire Elon Musk‘s companies, while Musk suggested Trump should be impeached, turning their romance into an all-out brawl on social media.
The hostilities began when Trump criticized Tesla CEO Musk in the Oval Office. Within hours, the once-close relationship had disintegrated in full public view, as the world’s most powerful man and its richest launched personal barbs at one another on Trump’s Truth Social and Musk’s X.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Wall Street traders dumped shares of Musk’s electric vehicle maker and Tesla closed down 14.3%, losing about $150 billion in market value.
It was Tesla’s largest single-day decline in value in its history.
Minutes after the closing bell, Musk replied, “Yes,” to a post on X saying Trump should be impeached.
Trump’s Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress and are highly unlikely to impeach him.
The trouble between the two started brewing days ago, when Musk denounced Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill. The president initially held his tongue while Musk campaigned to torpedo the bill, saying it would add too much to the nation’s $36.2 trillion in debt.
Trump broke his silence on Thursday, telling reporters in the Oval Office he was “very disappointed” in Musk.
“Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump said.
As Trump spoke, Musk responded in real time with increasingly acerbic posts on X.
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” wrote Musk, who spent nearly $300 million backing Trump and other Republicans in last year’s election.
“Such ingratitude.
”In another post, Musk asserted that Trump’s signature tariffs would push the U.S. into a recession later this year.
Besides Tesla, Musk’s businesses include rocket company and government contractor SpaceX and its satellite unit Starlink.
Musk, whose space business plays a critical role in the U.S. government’s space program, said that as a result of Trump’s threats he would begin decommissioning SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.
Dragon is the only U.S. spacecraft capable of sending astronauts to the International Space Station.
The feud was not entirely unexpected. Trump and Musk are both political pugilists with sizable egos and a penchant for using social media to punch back against their perceived enemies, and many observers had predicted an eventual falling out.
Even before Musk’s departure from the administration last week, his influence had waned following a series of clashes with cabinet members over his cuts to their agencies.
For Trump, the fight was the first major rift he has had with a top adviser since taking office for a second time, after his first term was marked by numerous blow-ups.
Trump parted ways with multiple chiefs of staff, national security advisers and political strategists during his 2017-2021 White House tenure.
A few, like Steve Bannon, remained in his good graces, while many others, like Ambassador John Bolton, became loud and vocal critics.
After serving as the biggest Republican donor in the 2024 campaign season, Musk became one of Trump’s most visible advisers as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which mounted a sweeping and controversial effort to downsize the federal workforce and slash spending.
Musk was frequently present at the White House and made multiple appearances on Capitol Hill, sometimes carrying his young son.
Only six days before Thursday’s blowup, Trump and Musk held a joint appearance in the Oval Office, where Trump praised Musk’s government service and both men promised to continue working together.
A prolonged feud between Trump and Musk could make it more difficult for Republicans to keep control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.
In addition to his campaign spending, Musk has a huge online following and helped connect Trump to parts of Silicon Valley and wealthy donors.
Musk had already said he planned to curtail his political spending in the future.
Soon after Trump’s Oval Office comments, Musk polled his 220 million followers on X:
“Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?”
Musk targeted what Trump has named his “big, beautiful bill” this week, calling it a “disgusting abomination” that would deepen the federal deficit. His attacks amplified a rift within the Republican Party that could threaten the bill’s prospects in the Senate.
Nonpartisan analysts say Trump’s bill could add $2.4 trillion to $5 trillion to the nation’s $36.2 trillion in debt.
Trump asserted that Musk’s true objection was the bill’s elimination of consumer tax credits for electric vehicles.
The president also suggested that Musk was upset because he missed working for the White House.“He’s not the first,” Trump said on Thursday.
“People leave my administration … then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile.”Musk wrote on X, “KILL the BILL,” adding he was fine with Trump’s planned cuts to electric vehicle credits as long as Republicans rid the bill of “mountain of disgusting pork” or wasteful spending.
He also pulled up past quotes from Trump decrying the level of federal spending, adding, “Where is this guy today?”
Musk came into government with brash plans to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. He left last week having cut only about half of 1% of total spending while causing disruption across multiple agencies.
Musk’s increasing focus on politics provoked widespread protests at Tesla sites in the U.S. and Europe, driving down sales while investors fretted that Musk’s attention was too divided.
Umo Eno, governor of Akwa Ibom state, has announced his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Speaking on Friday in Uyo, the state capital, Eno said the decision followed “three months of wide consultation” with critical stakeholders across the state.
“For some time now, the political space, particularly in this state and the nation in general, has been awash with the news of my likely movement from the PDP, the platform that has provided the levers and ladder of my political ascendancy to the position of governor of this state,” Eno said.
Eno said he has submitted a formal resignation letter to the PDP at the ward level, with copies also delivered to the party’s state and national chairmen.
“Earlier this morning, I submitted a formal letter of resignation from the Peoples Democratic Party to the ward chairman. Same copy has been sent to both the state chairman as well as the national chairman,” Eno said.
“I want to thank the Peoples Democratic Party for their support, for their love and for working with me this past two years in the affairs of running the state of Akwa Ibom across party lines, but this is a defining moment.”
“I believe that no one has moved aggressively or has ever changed party in this state that has consulted as widely as I’ve done,” the governor added.
“I did that because of the respect I have for all of you — as stakeholders in project Akwa Ibom. I did that knowing that each and every one of you needed to be consulted, to be informed.
“I needed your counsel, I needed to explain why I am moving, and at this point, that consultation culminated into my meeting with all the critical stakeholders in the PDP last night in this hall, where I took time to explain to all of you the reason why we must move.
“We must be able to interpret the times, and flow with the times, and not run against the tide. Having completed the rounds of my consultation, I have therefore decided to progressively move to the All Progressives Congress.”
On April 29, Eno hinted at a possible defection ahead of the 2027 general election as he likened the PDP to a faulty aircraft.
TheCable
Former Minister of Transport, and two-term Governor of Rivers State, Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has rebutted recent remarks by his immediate successor-turned-political rival, Mr. Nyesom Wike, saying Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was never offered the position of Commissioner for Finance, and rose politically by his own machinations.
Amaechi, who was speaking during an interview on ARISE News on Tuesday, dismissed claims attributed to Wike that he had declined appointment as finance commissioner.
Amaechi offered a series of clarifications and critiques, signaling a widening rift between the two Rivers State political giants.
He said, “I wanted him (Wike) as Chief of Staff so I could supervise him.
“Mohammed Adoke flew all the way from Abuja to Port Harcourt. That week he asked me to make him commissioner for finance and I said no, he has to work under me. I want him as chief of staff so I can supervise him.
“I didn’t offer him commissioner for finance. You see, I’m saying this because I don’t want to join issues with children. I was once his boss. Whether he likes it or not. I hired him. I could have said no.
“You know, he made himself chief of staff. He made himself governor. He made himself minister. He made himself local government chairman”, he disclosed.
“I didn’t offer him commissioner for finance,” he insisted.
He also defended his own emergence as governor, stating “Nobody made me governor. I went to court. At the end of the day, the judiciary pronounced me governor.” He credited Dr. Peter Odili and the Nigerian judiciary for their roles in his political ascent, maintaining his enduring respect for the former Rivers governor.
Amaechi used the occasion to highlight his record as governor, from building multiple flyovers and schools “copied from the ones I saw in Australia,” to establishing fully residential secondary schools, equipping hospitals, and implementing a free education program that drove many students from private to public schools. He said 400 doctors were hired during his tenure, cars and housing were provided for rural medical staff, and infrastructure projects—including a sports village and a mother and child hospital—were initiated but have since been abandoned.
“That gives me mental disorder,” Amaechi said emotionally, blaming successive administrations for the neglect. “Projects that would make a real difference in the lives of Rivers people have been vandalised and forgotten.”
As Minister of Transportation, he recounted completing or initiating several landmark projects, including the Lagos-Ibadan railway, Lekki deep sea port, Kaduna-Abuja railway, and the Port Harcourt-Kano line. “Don’t give me an assignment if you don’t want it done,” he stated firmly.
On party politics, Amaechi reiterated his disillusionment with both the APC and PDP, stating he will no longer work for either. Despite playing a key role in the APC’s rise to power between 2013 and 2015, he now distances himself from its current direction and leadership. While he expressed appreciation to former President Muhammadu Buhari for the opportunities to serve, he criticised the state of governance, the electoral system, and growing poverty, accusing political elites of “weaponising poverty.”
He also criticised the current INEC chairman and the inability of Nigeria’s electoral system to support new political parties, contrasting it with the more transparent process under former INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega in 2015. “Now, it’s state capture using the electoral institution as a machine,” he warned.
In one of the more reflective moments of the interview, Amaechi addressed questions about his ethnic identity, saying his public assertion of being Igbo was political—”in protest” against the treatment of Igbos at a particular time. He challenged those who questioned his identity, saying his community’s cultural and linguistic ties to the Igbo are undeniable.
Arise News
