The Fear Of Mohammed: An Open Letter To The Fugitive Mohammed Bello Adoke, By Dotun Oloko

De Mohammed: You may be aware that back in July 2013 I had asserted in this medium that you were not fit for public office because as Attorney General, you had frustrated efforts to prosecute corruption cases including Malabu. Consequently, when I read the transcript of your interview with the Cable titled “Abacha family using EFCC to humiliate me over Malabu, says Adoke”, I felt compelled to let you know that you are being sought in multiple jurisdictions over Malabu as a result of submissions that we made to various authorities including the EFCC and the Milan Prosecutor setting out how you orchestrated the Malabu scam. We also made similar submissions in the US and UK. Initially, some of the jurisdictions claimed that you had “sprinkled holy water on the deal” and were reluctant to investigate. However, their reluctance evaporated once the Milan Prosecutor opened a full investigation and multi-jurisdictional cooperation grew exponentially when you were subsequently voted out of office. This is the genesis of the trials and tribulations that you are now suffering.

We resisted your efforts to block any Malabu investigation in the hope that you and your fellow looters would be voted out of office and thankfully the Good Lord answered our prayers. Once Magu was appointed Acting Chair we re-submitted our complaint and can proudly attest to the professionalism that now permeates throughout the EFCC. Under Magu, the EFCC promptly opened an investigation and began cooperating fully with requests from abroad including Italy.

So, my dear Mohammed, your “first Gestapo experience” was not the work of Mohammed Abacha but the harvest of Mohammed Adoke. Mohammed Abacha can take the credit for instituting the legal action that caused Shell and Eni to pull out from doing a direct deal with Etete and forced you, Shell, Eni and Etete to execute the outrageous back-to-back agreements that have now sealed your fate and that of your co-defendants. Nigerians can take the credit for sweeping your looting government out of office and demanding greater accountability in public office.

I was most surprised to hear that as you were being arrested in the Netherlands your first thought was to ask to call your embassy!!!! Which embassy would that be? Is that the embassy of the country that you claimed you had fled from and are now afraid to return to or, do you have a passport from another country? Your claim that you feared for your life when you were the Attorney General sits oddly with your claim in the same interview that, you were still in fear for your life after you ceased being Attorney General, so much so that you fled the country. You continued to live in fear even after you arrived at your supposedly safe refuge in the Hague. I would, therefore, submit that you are constantly living in fear and looking over your shoulder wherever you go because you are afraid of justice. It is the height of treachery for you the immediate past Attorney-General and Minister of Justice to falsely represent to the whole world that you are in fear of our justice system when in actual fact you are in fear of justice like all wrongdoers are.

Instead of running from yourself you may want to borrow a leaf from your fellow Kano residents whose paths you crossed when you were the all-powerful Attorney General and Minister of Justice. Mohammed Abacha did not flee Nigeria when his father died and the Obasanjo administration charged him with murder. Neither did he flee Nigeria when you charged him with corruption. No sir, he stood and faced you and his accusers in court in Nigeria. Emir Sanusi did not flee Nigeria when you charged him to court after he, as CBN Governor had blown the whistle on the massive corruption and looting that you and your fellow lootocrats presided over. No sir, in fact, he was out

of the country when under your misdirection he was unlawfully ousted as CBN Governor. He immediately returned to Nigeria to face his accusers including your feckless self.

You may wish to reflect on the irony that you would probably be treated better in Nigeria than you would be in the Netherlands or any other Western country. The EFCC would most likely have treated you with more courtesy than you were treated in the Netherlands and probably would have invited you for questioning rather than arrest you in public. You should note that during the course of our campaign in the West, we came to understand that there was a view in some quarters that to succeed, their poor Western multinationals had no choice but to do corrupt business in foreign countries like Nigeria because of people like you. Consequently, while all these jurisdictions were willing to investigate and prosecute any Nigerian public official found to have received bribes or diverted the OPL 245 funds only the Milan prosecutor was willing to extend his investigation into the roles played by the oil multinationals and their executives.

Once the Italian investigation started gathering pace there was an inevitable fallout among the affected Eni executives and middlemen and a roforofo fight ensued as the blame game started. The blame game appears from recent revelations to have extended to the Netherlands and Shell executives. The one thing that you can be assured of is that the blame game in the West will not be complete without their stereotypical true villain of the piece, the obligatory black man and corrupt foreign public official who forced the unfortunate white folks to engage in action that they would not otherwise have engaged in. You sir, are the only man in their jurisdiction that presently fits that profile and while you may consider yourself a refugee from persecution in Nigeria you are in fact a tethered scapegoat in the Netherlands awaiting sacrifice on the altar of Western propaganda.

Your “Gestapo experience” should have alerted you to what the future holds for you in any Western jurisdiction. As far as I am aware Ibori is the only convicted Nigerian politician with a published police mugshot. You would, therefore, be well advised to gather any semblance of courage and dignity that you can find, stop badmouthing your country and return home to defend yourself amongst your own people. It is only in Nigeria that you can leverage your experience and resources as the immediate past Attorney General to negotiate the type of deal that you cannot get in any other country. In conclusion, I leave you with these words

Mohammed, Mohammed, fear not Mohammed for you have only Mohammed to fear. The fear of Mohammed led to your downfall.
The fear of Mohammed caused you to flee.
The fear of Mohammed follows you wherever you go.

Mohammed, Mohammed, confront your fear of Mohammed or forever live in fear and die a thousand times before your death.