Saharareporters is now in possession of details of a carefully scripted plan to bribe the chairman of the Presidential Elections Tribunal in Nigeria, Justice James Ogebe through his Washington, DC–based son, Mr. Emmanuel Ogebe.

According to the latest revelations, Umar Yar'adua approved an initial $150,000 down payment to Emmanuel Ogebe who advertises himself as "Number 1 Legal Consultant in Nigeria in Washington, DC."

The payment was to be the first of a $2 million bribe Emmanuel Ogebe was to be paid on behalf of his father, a justice of the Federal Court of Appeal who is presiding over several petitions arising from the widely rigged April 21, 2007 presidential election.

Attorney General and Justice Minister Michael Aondoakaa hatched the bribery plan. Aondoakaa has made several visits to the US where had meetings with the younger Ogebe.

On one of such visits, Michael Aondoakaa was a guest of the Nigeria Lawyers Association in New York and lodged at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Arriving in the US several days before the one-day event that took place on a Saturday, Aondoakaa made time for “fun” and to have elaborate meetings with the younger Ogebe.

One source told Saharareporters that, prior to his visit to the US on that trip, Aondoakaa had never been to the US before becoming the AGF, a claim we could not independently verify before going to press.
However, we can confirm that the attorney general spent ample time with Emmanuel Ogebe during his visit and dangled the bait of highly lucrative legal briefs to Justice Ogebe’s son. Aondoakaa made it clear to Emmanuel Ogebe that Yar’adua hoped that the award of legal briefs to the younger Ogebe would “persuade” Justice Ogebe to affirm Yar’adua’s election.

Both Aondoakaa and the Justice Ogebe are from Nigeria's North Central state of Benue. Michael Aondoakaa is Tiv while James Ogebe is an Idoma native.

Our sources, said that, Emmanuel Ogebe, on detecting that he was being used to corruptly influence his father, he decided to play along. He met with Aondoakaa several times afterwards to further discuss winning briefs from the federal government. He told Aondoakaa that there were three contentious cases going on in the US against the Nigerian government, and promised that his intervention was necessary as a “legal consultant”.

Saharareporters has found out that Emmanuel Ogebe does not even have a license to practice law in the US.

The cases for which Aondoakaa sought to make Ogebe a legal consultant for the Federal Government were listed as Abiola vs. Abubakar; the NNPC vs. Gulf Petrec at the US Appeal Court of the 5th Circuit in New Orleans, and the Wilbros case in Texas.

Apart from the Wilbros case in which the accessing of court records was the only legal effort required, the other two cases already had paid lawyers hired by the Nigerian authorities (attorneys-on-record) handling them, so there was no need to retain any legal consultants to assist with the cases.

In fact, with regard to the Abiola vs. Abubakar case, both plaintiffs and defendants had already entered into negotiations to work out an out-of-court settlement before Umar Yar'adua came to occupy Aso Rock.

Aondoakaa’s offer of legal briefs to Emmanuel Ogebe had nothing to do with the three cases, but was a pretext to bribe Justice Ogebe, the most important judge in the Presidential Elections Tribunal. Aondoakaa and Yar’adua had become anxious, according to our sources, because Justice Ogebe had become unpredictable on the account of his religious beliefs. One of Yar'adua's political handlers described the judge as “a Christian fanatic.” Aondoakaa and Yar'adua wanted to reach Justice Ogebe on time, figuring that if Emmanuel Ogebe was well taken care of, he could make Yar’adua’s case to his father during the judge’s annual medical visits to the US.

Aondoakaa proposed to Emmanuel Ogebe to write a proposal to his office asking to become a legal consultant to the aforementioned cases. It was unclear if Emmanuel Ogebe did so before his relationship with Aondoakaa became frosty—in large part over financial dealings.

Sources close to both parties adduce various reasons why their relationship broke down before Emmanuel Ogebe's proposal to become a legal consultant to Federal Government cases in the US. One reliable source told Saharareporters that Emmanuel Ogebe abandoned Michael Aondoakaa because he found direct access to Yar'adua.

On his part, Aondoakaa told his close associates that Emmanuel Ogebe was not to be trusted, describing him as a scammer. In turn, Emmanuel Ogebe insists that it was Aondoakaa who was the biggest scammer of all time. He described an instance where Aondoakaa gave the Wilbros brief to his (Aondoakaa’s) cousin, simply referred to as "Ohi," a lawyer in Texas. Ogebe told his friends that the AGF promptly cancelled the brief as soon as he threatened to expose the deal. Aondoakaa eventually asked a US-based lawyer to help him get the documents from a US court in Texas for free. By then, Andoakaa had spent several nights in the US in the company of three other federal government delegates ostensibly in search of court records in the Wilbros case. They collected huge estacodes said to be $3,000 each per night and also raked up huge hotel bills.

Saharareporters learnt that as Emmanuel Ogebe’s relationship with Aondoakaa soured, the young man perfected a direct way to reach Yar'adua. Some of the sources interviewed for this story said Emmanuel Ogebe wanted to cut Aondoakaa out of the deal because he knew too well that Yar'adua needed him very badly.

In September 2007 in New York, Emmanuel Ogebe personally presented a letter to Yar'adua at the latter’s press conference with Nigerian journalists. Later that month, he reportedly sent another petition through a government official stating that he was the lawyer handling the Abubakar vs. Abiola case on behalf of the federal government. The alleged that Aondoakaa wanted to bring in another lawyer to take over from him, and warned that this development was likely to lead to Nigeria’s loss of the case.

Saharareporters learnt that when Yar'adua broached the petition with Aondoakaa, the attorney general assured him that Justice Ogebe had been taken care of. One source told us that Aondoakaa showed pictures of Emmanuel Ogebe and himself in the US to assure Yar'adua that things were going on as planned.

Meanwhile, after waiting for settlement from the Nigerian government without results, an irate Emmanuel Ogebe again met with Nigerian government in Yar'adua’s delegation to the White House visit and delivered another petition and request for his promised pay off, using Abubakar's case as his launch pad.

Towards the end of 2007, Yar'adua approved the sum of $150,000 as payment for Emmanuel Ogebe even as Aondoakaa was engaged in settling the Abubakar case directly with the attorneys-of-record, according to the terms of the out-of-court settlement stipulated by the parties. No mention was made about the pay off to Emmanuel Ogebe.

But by January 2008, Aondoakaa—who has traveled to the US more frequently than other members of Yar'adua's cabinet—reportedly informed Yar'adua that he was going to pay Mr. Emmanuel Ogebe the sum of $150,000 approved by Yar'adua. He asked that Emmanuel Ogebe be told to meet him in Washington, DC to pick up the payment.

The details of what transpired between the two in Washington, DC remain shadowy as both sides gave differing accounts. While the AGF accused Ogebe of coming to see him with a hidden tape recorder, calling him a “419-er” and threatened to have him deported from the US, another account told Saharareporters that the AGF was never in Washington, DC in January as he claimed. We confirmed that Mr. Aondoakaa was in London on January 11 2008 to meet with attorneys in charge of Abubakar's case to conclude the out-of-court negotiations.

Emmanuel Ogebe arrived Nigeria about two weeks ago and reportedly sent word to Yar'adua that the AGF never paid him the approved monies. He also told top administration officials that his life was under threat from assassins hired by Michael Aondoakaa, Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice.

When Yar’adua summoned the AGF to explain why he did not pay Ogebe, he produced documents that showed that Emmanuel Ogebe was an "enemy combatant" who had sworn to affidavits and legal notes in support of enemies of Nigeria in the Abiola Vs. Abubakar case. He also provided letters written by attorneys for the plaintiffs and defendant in the Abiola case denouncing Emmanuel Ogebe for his spoiler role. He said the documents compelled him to withhold the fees approved by Yar'adua—and which he had already reported to Yar'adua that he was going to Washington, DC the previous week to deliver.

Several political pundits say the central disturbing question raised by the whole affair is why Yar'adua approved $150,000 to be paid to James Ogebe's son for no discernible legal services rendered. Another question is: Why did the AGF agree to pay a non-attorney in court cases that already had their attorneys-on-record, according to case dockets? Why would Aondoakaa agree to pay $150,000 to Mr. Emmanuel Ogebe, a man with no license to practice law, and whose legal fees the AGF did not vet as required by the government’s so-called due process and zero-tolerance for corruption?


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