By Oluseye Adebayo -July 6, 2024
“A lot of people are circulating the fantastical nonsense from Okoi @ObonoObla. As a fact, I don’t & can’t hold brief for @MBuhari or anything in his regime, but we need to be careful abt conferring credulity upon the claims of a manifest fantasist or fabulist.”
Renowned human rights lawyer Professor Chidi Odinkalu on “X” expressed concern over what he called “delusional nonsense.”
We are witnessing a season in which some shameless public officials who were in the previous government and enthusiastically took part in its decisions and actions are now turning around to disown and castigate their past. One of them is Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla.
Prio to his appointment, Obla was a lawyer in the office of A. A Malami, SAN where he practised law as the Head of the Chamber. He was also a defunct member of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
After the success of the APC in the 2015 presidential election and the subsequent appointment of Malami as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, the minister nominated Obla for appointment as a Special Adviser to serve in the office of the Attorney General on matters of prosecution, given his background as a lawyer.
He continued in that role until his appointment by the then Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo SAN in August, 2017, as the chairman of the Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of federal government property. He was at a point rejected by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as a board member of the National Communications Commission.
For clarity, this Panel was constituted on the authority of the recovery of the Public Property Act of 1984 and intended to enhance the anti-corruption initiatives of the administration.
The Acting President who appointed Obla clarified what the panel was meant to address in line with its enabling law.
However, as will be seen later in this write-up, Obla’s hunger for power and intoxication with it soon surfaced as he began to carry out activities using the instrumentality of the panel that are ultra vires the mandate he was entrusted with.
He began to see himself beyond the ad-hoc nature of the powers of the panel and usurping the mandate of substantive government agencies with adequate processes, protocol and manpower to conduct investigation and properly carry out prosecution.
He single-handedly designed the panel structure and culled personnel from the police, creating offices such as the director of operations similar to what was obtained in the EFCC, and even to the extent of having a cell to confine arrested individuals. He created and attached himself and his office directly to the presidency as evident on a letter headed paper he had printed for his new office without any administrative approval.
It was these and other procedural excesses of his that caught the attention of the office of the vice president, his appointor to write a series of letters drawing his attention and cautioning his activities. It is noteworthy that Obla disregarded these letters and refused to heed the calls contained in them.
It was clear to the office of the vice president that Obla at this juncture, did not only derail from the mandate for which the panel was set up but also constituted himself as unruly and insubordinate of the appointing authority.
Several correspondences from the Deputy Chief of Staff, DCOS, drawing Obla’s attention to the mandate of this panel and how far from it he had derailed, were not addressed or were just disregarded. Obla continued to carry out his duties in violation of his statutory mandate and disregarding several warnings.
Premium Times had reported these matters in detail as follows:
‘However, just two months into its establishment, the panel was deemed to have derailed and hence, was cautioned.
On October 20, 2017, Ade Ipaye, the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, wrote the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, directing him to “please inform Chief Okoi Obono-Obla, in strict compliance with Section (1) 1 of the recovery of Public Properties Act, he should refrain from carrying out any activities as Chairman of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel on Recovery of Public Property (SPIP), until his Excellency, the Vice President so instructs.’
“As envisaged by this section, it is for the President to specify the purpose or mandate of the panel. It, therefore, came as a surprise that Chief Okoi Obono-Obla had issued notices to several judges to declare their assets without receiving any specific mandate in that regard,” the letter further reads.
Apparently, due to a disregard of the first letter, the Vice President wrote to the AGF again as a reminder on November 17, 2017. The reminder came with specifics.
The VP asked the panel to remove ‘Presidency’ from its letterhead and remain ‘Special Investigation Panel o
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