Former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mike Aondoakaa
Disgraced former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of
Justice, Michael Aondoakaa, has sued the American government, seeking
explanation for the revocation of his U.S. non-immigrant visa.
The U.S. government had revoked Mr Aondoakaa’s visa and those of
members of his family soon after he left office due to his alleged link
to corruption.
An unnamed U.S. diplomat, who spoke to Punch Newspapers at the time,
confirmed that the former minister’s visa was revoked under Proclamation
7750 that empowers the U.S. authorities to bar anyone with links to
corruption from entering the U.S.
However, further details about the revocation were not disclosed.
PREMIUM TIMES can report today that the former minister filed a case
against the State Department after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
request he filed was turned down.
He then approached a United States District Court asking it to compel
the U.S. to release documents related to the revocation of his visa to
him, according to court papers exclusively obtained by PREMIUM TIMES.
The suit, filed in a US district Court, District of New Jersey, by Mr
Aondoakaa’s U.S. attorney, Thomas Moseley, was instituted few weeks
after the ex-minister denied he was banned from entering the U.S.
“I have not been banned from entering the United States and I have my
visa intact,” Mr Aondoakaa had said in a statement released on June 26,
2010.
“Secondly, none of my relatives has a student visa to the United
States as claimed by some publications. Therefore, the US Government
cannot revoke what they did not issue.”
However, the court documents shows that on August 10, 2010, Mr
Moseley filed the FOIA suit against the US Department of State asking
for the release of documents showing reasons why his client’s visa was
revoked.
“This is an action under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as
amended, 5 U.S.C & 552 et seq. to enjoin the defendant from
withholding certain records sought by the plaintiff including document
relevant to the reasons for which his non-immigrant visa was revoked,”
the court documents read.
However, the Department of State did not provide the details sought
by Mr Aondoakaa after the expiration of 20 days statutory period for the
documents to be provided.
Mr Aondoakaa therefore asked the court to order the State Department
to make the documents he sought available to him in “their entirety.” He
asked the court to award him the cost of disbursement plus attorney fee
as well as expediting the proceedings of the complaint.
The documents seen by Premium Times also included an unsigned court
summon ordering the Department of State to provide Mr Aondoakaa the
information he sought.
“A lawsuit has been filed against you. Within 21 days after service
of this summons on you (not counting the day you received it) – or 60
days if you are the United State or a United State agency or an officer
or an employee of the United State… you must serve on the plaintiff an
answer to the attached compliant or a motion under rule 12 of the
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure.”
“If you fail to respond, judgement by default will be entered against you for the relief demanded in the complaint.”
It is unclear whether the State Department eventually provided my Aondoakaa the details he sought.
The State Department and the United States embassy in Nigeria did not respond to emails sent to them.
Mr Aondoakaa, who is believed to be nursing a governorship ambition
in his native state of Benue, couldn’t be reached on his mobile phone
number for comment on the suit. He didn’t answer or return calls.
His attorney, Mr Moseley, also did not respond to our email neither did he return our calls.
The many sins of Aondoakaa
Mr Aondoakaa, a prominent member of late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s
government, was notorious for his brash support of the government and
his shameless defence of corrupt former governor of Delta State, James
Ibori, who is now serving a 13-year prison term in the United Kingdom
for money laundering offences.
As Attorney General, Mr Aondoakaa did everything to block the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from prosecuting Mr
Ibori and other corrupt officials.
He lied to British investigators requesting information on the former
governor under the Mutual Legal Assistant Treaty between both
countries.
Mr Aondoakaa also wrote a letter saying Mr Ibori had not been charged
to any court in Nigeria. That was after the EFCC had charged Mr Ibori
to court soon after he left office as governor.
True to his nature, Mr Aondoakaa denied writing any such letter but
was forced to shamefully recant after a copy of the letter was published
in the media.
He also declined the request by the London Metropolitan Police to
allow officials of the EFCC to stand as prosecuting witness against Mr
Ibori.
On September 18, 2007, the former minister wrote a letter to French
authorities questioning the appropriateness of prosecuting former oil
minister Dan Etete, implicated in the N155 billion Malabu Oil scandal,
for money laundering since Nigeria had neither complained nor
investigated Mr Etete for the said crime.
“Permit me to state for the avoidance of any doubt that this office
is unaware of any complaint or allegation of money laundering against
the petitioner (Etete) to warrant any instruction to emanate from this
office to any person howsoever called or described to proceed against
the petitioner in relation to the ongoing prosecution in Paris,” he
wrote.
Mr Etete was later convicted for money laundering offences by a Paris court.
He also shielded the owners of Globe Motors, Vaswani Brothers from
investigation and prosecution. The brothers were later indicted and
deported by the government for gross corruption on the Nigerian people.
Deliberately misinterpreting the law
As Nigeria’s chief legal officer, Mr Aondoakaa ironically showed a
high disregard for the law of the country. When he is not deliberately
misinterpreting laws to shield his corrupt cronies, he is busy
displaying schoolboy ignorance of the tenets of local and international
laws.
One of Mr Aondoakaa’s pastime as Minister of Justice was his endless
berating of UK authorities over the indictment of serial fraudster, Mr.
Ibori. Mr Aondoakaa argued that the indictment of corrupt Nigerians by
foreign authorities was a usurpation of Nigerian jurisdiction. He
apparently was unaware that international law allows countries to assume
jurisdiction for offences committed outside their national boarders
especially where such offences have international implication.
Debarred
In 2010, the Legal Privileges Committee (LPPC) suspended Mr Aondoakaa
from using the rank of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria for two years
following a petition by the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights
(CDHR) and a ruling by a Calabar Federal High Court on June 1, 2010,
that he was unfit to hold the office of the Attorney General or any
public office in Nigeria.
The statement by the LPPC at the time read, “After due consideration
of the said response, has decided in its wisdom, to suspend him
[Aondoakaa] from the use of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria and
all other privileges attached to that rank, pending the outcome of the
investigation by the sub-committee set up by the legal practitioners
privileges committee.”
