Go clear your name – Atiku tells Adoke

– Atiku dissociates self from Adoke’s travails  – Cautions Adoke against dragging names of innocent people into the fray Former vice-president Atiku Abubakar has dismissed claims by the former attorney-general of the federation and minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke (SAN) that he is behind the travails the latter is going through in the hands of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Adoke had in a letter to Vice-president Osinbajo on Monday, February 22, alleged that aggrieved individuals including Atiku, who is posing as Lawal Abba were behind a smear campaign against him for not extending the proceeds of the malabu deal to them.

In his letter Adoke said: “I was also informed that these individuals had enlisted a notorious online media to smear my name with allegations of corruption and bribery and that some agents of the Abacha family and one Lawal Abba acting for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, a former Vice President were behind the scheme. “They claim that they were shareholders in Malabu Oil and Gas Limited and had been short-changed by the main shareholder of the company, and that I had refused to use my official position as Attorney General of the Federation to help them get their dues from the main shareholder. “It is apparent from these publications that the intention is not necessarily the clarifications sought by the EFCC but a carefully orchestrated plan for my assured unjustified persecution, humiliation and disgrace by a known group with interest in the Malabu matter that are aggrieved over my official role in the resolution of the case.” But the former vice-president, according to The Punch, in a release by his media adviser, Paul Ibe on Tuesday, February 23, in a Abuja faulted Adoke for trying to blame him for being under investigation by the EFCC.

The statement by Atiku read: The former Vice-President does not have a hand in the travails of the former Attorney General and Minister of Justice. Atiku advised “erstwhile Attorney-General and others so invited to focus on clearing their names instead of dragging innocent people into the fray.” In another develpment, an aide de camp to the former president, Goodluck Jonathan has dragged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to court over abuse of his fundamental human rights. Ojogbane Adegbe is seeking among others: N100 million as damages for unlawful detention from the EFCC, a court order for his immediate release and a written apology by the anti-graft agency.