The Attorney General and Minister of Justice,
Mohammed Bello Adoke, has claimed ignorance of
his own affidavit to scuttle the use of Permanent
Voter Cards (PVC) in Nigeria’s elections by the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In a press statement on Wednesday in response to
the SaharaReporters’ story, Mr. Adoke stated that the
two affidavits which were filed by his own staff in the
Ministry of Justice without his permission, but that he
was accepting responsibility for the incident.
In the story, which we published yesterday, we
reported that in one of two affidavits aimed at
positioning President Goodluck Jonathan to win next
month’s election, Mr. Adoke argued that if the
election was conducted using the cards, the
“constitutional right of the many eligible voters
would be taken away from them,” and that the
election “is likely to be unsuccessful if rigid use of
the Permanent Voters’ Card is carried out.”
We also reported that in a second affidavit, Mr. Adoke
also argued that “the use of card readers and/or any
other machine at the general elections must
encourage eligible voters to vote without being
deprived in any way.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Adoke denied knowledge of the
affidavits.
“While, the deponent, (Lawrence Illop) and Messrs
Taiwo Abidogun and N.S. Odusola who signed the
Written Address in Support of the Counter Affidavit
are staff of the Federal Ministry of Justice, I wish to
state that the Officers did not avail me the
opportunity of perusing or vetting the Affidavit and
Written Address before they were filed,” he claimed.
He stated that in the Federal Ministry of Justice, the
Attorney General is normally availed copies of all
court processes prepared in reply to suits against the
Office and his opinion first obtained especially in
sensitive suits such as the one in question before
such processes are filed, but not in the current case.
He further stated that although the Office of the
Attorney General of the Federation and the
Independent National Electoral Commission are co-
defendants in the suit [No. FHC/ABJ/06/15] instituted
by the Society For Advancement & Protection of
Public Rights seeking the interpretation of sections
77 (2) and 112 of the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as well as section 9(5) of
the Electoral Act, “I wish to categorically state that I
was not aware of the contents of the Counter
Affidavit deposed to by Lawrence Illop and did not
authorize it.”
Blaming the officers responsible for not adhering to
procedure, Mr. Adoke said he had directed the
processes to be withdrawn to enable an appropriate
response to be filed to the originating summons.
He announced that a query is to be issued to the
officers concerned.

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