U.S citizen and constitutional/international lawyer
Bruce Fein has penned an open letter to President
Muhammadu Buhari regarding what he considers as
the President’s selective prosecution of corruption
charges against former officials in the Goodluck
Jonathan administration. Fein points out that the
current administration’s anti-corruption move was not
even-handed in the pursuit of justice, advising Buhari
to “make the hallmark of your administration justice,
not retribution, and you may live for the ages.”
Fein, who served as a senior official in Ronald
Reagan’s Justice Department, is a principal in a
government affairs and public relations firm, The
Lichfield Group, based in Washington, D.C.
See the full text of Fein’s letter below:

Aso Rock, Abuja
Nigeria
Dear President Buhari:
When you visited the United States Institute of
Peace last July, you pledged that you would be
“fair, just and scrupulously follow due process
and the rule of law, as enshrined in [the
Nigerian]constitution” in prosecuting
corruption.
Such loftiness is laudable. As the Bible
instructs in Amos 5:24: “Let justice roll down
like waters, and righteousness like an ever-
flowing stream.”
But to be just, the law must be evenhanded. It
cannot, in the manner of Russian President
Vladimir Putin, be something that is given to
punish your enemies and withheld to favor
your friends. If so, the law becomes an
instrument of injustice bearing earmarks of the
wicked rather than the good.
In the United States, you declared a policy of
“zero tolerance” against corruption. You
solicited weapons and other assistance from
the United States government based on that
avowal. But were you sincere?
During your election campaign, you promised
widespread amnesty, not zero tolerance. You
elaborated: “Whoever that is indicted of
corruption between 1999 to the time of
swearing-in would be pardoned. I am going to
draw a line, anybody who involved himself in
corruption after I assume office, will face the
music.”
After you were inaugurated, however, you
disowned your statement and declared you
would prosecute past ministers or other
officials for corruption or fraud. And then again
you immediately hedged. You were reminded
of your dubious past by former Major General
and President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida,
who succeeded your military dictatorship. He
released this statement:
“On General Buhari, it is not in IBB’s tradition
to take up issues with his colleague former
President. But for the purpose of record, we
are conversant with General Buhari’s so-called
holier-than-thou attitude. He is a one-time
Minister of Petroleum and we have good
records of his tenure as minister. Secondly, he
presided over the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF,
which records we also have.
We challenge him to come out with clean
hands in those two portfolios he headed. Or
we will help him to expose his records of
performance during those periods. Those who
live in glass houses should not throw stones.
General Buhari should be properly guided.”
You then swiftly backed off your zero tolerance
policy because you would have been its first
casualty.
You opportunistically announced that zero
tolerance would be narrowed to the
predecessor administration of Goodluck
Jonathan because to probe further would be “a
waste of time.” That conclusion seems
preposterous. In 2012, the World Bank’s ex-
vice president for Africa, Oby Ezekwesili,
estimated that a stupendous $400 billion in
Nigerian oil revenues had been stolen or
misspent since independence in 1960. The
lion’s share of that corruption spans far
beyond the Jonathan administration.
Your zero tolerance policy seems to come with
a squint to avoid seeing culpability in your
political friends. A few examples are but the
tip of the iceberg.
A Rivers State judicial commission of inquiry
found that N53 billion disappeared from the
Rivers State Reserve Fund under former
governor Rotimi Amaechi. Former Lagos
governor and head of your campaign finance
team Babatunde Fashola was accused of
squandering N78 million of government money
to upgrade his personal website. The EFCC
has ignored these corruption allegations, and
you have given both promotions: the Ministry
of Transport to Mr. Amaechi, and the Ministry
of Power, Works, and Housing to Mr. Fashola.
In contrast, you have played judge, jury, and
prosecutor in the newspapers to convict former
PDP Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-
Madueke of corruption.
Is this evenhanded justice?
United States Supreme Court Justice Robert
Jackson taught: “There is no more effective
practical guaranty against arbitrary and
unreasonable government than to require that
the principles of law which officials would
impose upon a minority must be imposed
generally. Conversely, nothing opens the door
to arbitrary action so effectively as to allow
those officials to pick and choose only a few to
whom they will apply legislation and thus to
escape the political retribution that might be
visited upon them if larger numbers were
affected.”
To investigate or prosecute based on political
affiliation or opinion also violates Articles 2
and 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. It is unworthy of a great nation like
Nigeria.
Make the hallmark of your administration
justice, not retribution, and you may live for
the ages.
I am a United States citizen and lawyer. I have
no political standing in Nigeria. Some might
argue that my speaking about the
administration of justice in Nigeria bespeaks
impertinence But you chose to visit the United
States to solicit weapons and other assistance
from my government–a government of the
people, by the people, for the people. The
United States government represents me.
What the United States government does
reflects on me. I thus have an interest in
addressing the actions of foreign governments
that receive United States government aid.
Sunshine is said to be the best of
disinfectants.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein
Fein & DelValle PLLC
300 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Suite 900
Washington, D.C. 20001

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/top-american-constitutional-lawyer-publishes-scathing-open-letter-to-buhari/