By LANRE ADEWOLE
PROFESSOR of law, Mike Ozekhome (authorities say he can’t answer Silk for now), has always been a colourful personality, maybe with a bit more needless theatricality in delivery while pursuing jurisprudential comfort for self and others.
The showmanship craft, while using law as an asset in obtaining social justice, is more prevalent amongst the alumni of the Gani Fawehinmi Institute of Judicial Altruism, but arguably no other breed in the Nigerian legal community has pursued justice for the underprivileged like the now-late Oyesola and his mentees.
Ozekhome is a “proud” product of the Fawehinmi factory; loud for a purpose.
For most of the eight years the presidency of the now-late Muhammadu Buhari ran, especially the first four years of the Katsina retired general, the Edo-born showman was practically locked in a battle of attrition with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), seen under then-chairman Ibrahim Magu as the guillotine the Buhari administration was using to decapitate its enemies. Ayo Fayose, then Ekiti governor and a venomous opponent of President Buhari, was understandably one of those so tagged. And Ozekhome was (I believe still is) his courtroom shield. But Fayose wasn’t even the most valued client of the senior lawyer.
There was (and I believe still is) Goodluck Jonathan. You don’t serve a president who has just been acrimoniously deposed as a personal attorney and not be a target for the successor. But there seems to be more camaraderie between the two South-South sons than one just covering up judicially for the other and, no doubt, in the process, benefiting from being the chosen one to defend the person of the country’s president. During one of his birthday soirées in his Abuja home, to which judicial correspondents were invited, Jonathan, as president, showed up to felicitate his lawyer! He came in quietly and left quietly though the paths of an elephant would always bear giant footprints.
Despite also leaving power quietly in 2015, it would seem Jonathan and his orbit were perennial targets of the Buhari administration, with Fayose coming up prime. Magu’s goons would not even allow him to leave office before the lawfare began despite the constitutional immunity, and guess who was in the thick of it; Ozekhome.
Between 2016 and 2017, the senior lawyer had become a major battle focus for the agency as he was ubiquitous in scuttling imminent judicial victories for the EFCC in different courts around the country. He became Magu’s magun (keep-off charm) for those targeted for decimation, denying the now-retired senior police officer the joy of showcasing convictions as evidence of fighting alleged corruption.
For the EFCC, Ozekhome had become somewhat of a stumbling block that must at least be shifted if it couldn’t be cast off and thrown into the sea. Magu brought a criminal claim against him; he was accused of criminally moving cash for Fayose, whose accounts were targeted for transaction restrictions.
Ozekhome got Fayose’s accounts unfrozen, then the controversial Ekiti governor moved N75 million into his lawyer’s account as legal fees and all hell let loose!
Magu went after Ozekhome’s accounts, froze them, and slammed a criminal charge of money laundering against him. Even some senior lawyers sniggered at the Fayose deal. Many agreed with Magu that the legal fee was suspicious. But Mike was unmoved. After the courtroom’s back and forth, Gani’s boy triumphed and, in a dramatic moment captured on camera as he exited the court, he went down on his knees, bowed his head to God in appreciation and connected his forehead with the ground, the Muslim praying way, openly acknowledging his God! I told myself in my heart this man can’t possibly suffer public shame again.
You ask how I came to that conclusion? Did God, in rejecting Eli and his household for continued priesthood in 1 Samuel 2:30, not say “for them that honour me I will honour and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed?”
Yes, a bit of theatrics might have been ingrained into the act, but how does God not countenance a “big” man by at least Nigerian standards (and even abroad, presidential friendship is a big deal), practically casting his “crown” to publicly honour Him as his Strength?
True, Jesus says the best way to show Him love is through our obedience and that would include staying away from “staining” rewards and straining “relationships”, but giving open testimony, like he did again in the courtroom by singing praise to God on his knees after he got then Cross River governor Ben Ayade judicially preserved in office following his defection to the APC, couldn’t have counted against him before his God. Did the children of Israel, particularly the dance-loving women, not file out with cymbals in appreciation to God after the demolition of the forces of Egypt and crossing of the Red Sea? While the open artistic demonstration of gratitude to God is debatable at the juncture of hypocrisy and deeds, it’s still commendable that a man of his status is openly identifying with God as his Strength, not the arm of flesh or brilliance.
But he has a way of picking his clients or, more like, attracting them. It would seem the good, the bad, and the ugly stream to him in equal measure.
In an interview with The Punch newspaper edition of February 25, 2017, he explained his ordeal with the EFCC thus: “They want to embarrass me because between March last year and January this year, which is about 10 months, I have defeated the EFCC in five cases in various courts in Nigeria. First, I defeated the EFCC in the case of EFCC vs. Governor Ayodele Fayose before the Federal High Court in Ado-Ekiti in a judgement delivered by Justice Taiwo Taiwo on December 13, 2016. The court ordered that the EFCC should defreeze the account immediately and make the account operational because the freezing of the account was illegal, unconstitutional, unlawful, wrongful and unorthodox.
“Second, in March last year, one Col. Nicholas Achinze was detained by the Nigerian Army. They and the EFCC were playing this man like a yoyo. The Army would detain him today, the EFCC would detain him tomorrow. I went to court before Justice Yusuf Halilu of the FCT High Court. I defeated the EFCC. The court ordered that the colonel should be released immediately and all his seized properties be released to him.
“Third, in December last year in Abuja, I defeated the EFCC at the Federal High Court before Justice Nnamdi Dimgba in a case in which they had sealed the property of Governor Ayodele Fayose in some parts of Abuja and Lagos. I got the Federal High Court to unseal the property.
“Even while that case was still going on, they (EFCC) went again surreptitiously to the court of Justice (Okon) Abang to get another order to seal the same property which had been unsealed by Justice Dimgba because they (EFCC) live above the law, contrary to their motto that no one is above the law. Fourth, in January this year, a lawyer, Sylvanus Okpetu, practising in Warri, was reported by Julius Berger to the EFCC over a contract. The EFCC went to Warri, abducted this lawyer like a common criminal, detained him overnight in Warri and flew him to Abuja.
“In Abuja, they also detained him for some days. I went to the FCT High Court this last month. The court declared the detention, arrest and seizure of his properties illegal and awarded the sum of N6m damages against the EFCC. The court also awarded the sum of N3m damages against Julius Berger that reported the matter to the EFCC.
The good news is that Julius Berger has since paid the N3m to my client, but trust the EFCC, when you defeat them, rather than accept it for once that they can be defeated, they would either use the crude machinery of government against you or they go on appeal.”
Then his current travail, which trivialises the former. All things are supposed to become new for a genuine child of God, which I take Prof. to be, but a past is back haunting, hunting and hurting. How Prof. will make up for the lost ground in high moral standards, which appear to be the distinguishable creed as a Gani alumnus, is beyond me right now but God is infinite in everything, including miracles. He can still restore the famed Senior Advocate of the Masses, one-time Gani’s direct deputy as the deputy head of chambers, celebrated author and scholar. But I read the UK ruling on the mess associating with the now-late Gen.
Jeremiah Useni (a.k.a. Jerry Boi) has covered Ozekhome with. If those claimed facts and pieces of evidence hold, the Enobakhare of Benin Kingdom is in a real mess beyond the suspension of his Silk title. How did it get to the point of alleged forgery for whatever the UK house is worth? What about the name, the brand and the massive national and international goodwill as a foremost human rights fighter?
It is likely some might find my seeming ululating needless.
