Mohammed Adoke, former minister of justice and attorney-general of the federation, has spoken about the roles played by allies of former President Goodluck Jonathan in making him concede the 2015 election.
In an interview with Premium Times, Adoke said Waripamo-Owei Dudafa, Jonathan’s former special adviser on domestic affairs, took the lead role in convincing the former president to accept the outcome of the election.
Jonathan, who lost to Muhammadu Buhari, then candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), had called to congratulate his opponent before the final results were announced.
Adoke said while some close aides of Jonathan advised him to concede the election, some others kicked against it.
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He said it was while some of them were contemplating on how to meet the former president to urge him to concede defeat that Dafuda took the lead.
“The president was visibly agitated like any other person would be; no president wants to be defeated because that is a referendum on his tenure,” he said.
“So, it was at that point, when the president was still agitated that a fine young man, the special assistant to the president on domestic matters, Dudafa shouted from the back and said ‘Daddy, we are leaving here on the 29th of May’.
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“That gave us the impetus to now approach the president; myself, Osita and Dudafa. We stooped before him and started counselling him; we said Mr President what do you want to be remembered for? So, he stood up crisply, went to his study and placed the call to President Buhari to make the concession.”
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Adoke also spoke of how Patience Jonathan, wife of the former president, abused him when her husband’s defeat was imminent.
He said he remained loyal to Jonathan, even when some of those in the administration then “were contributing money” for Buhari’s campaign.
“It is true that I was abused by the president’s wife. This happened on the 30th, a day before the concession,” he said.
“I don’t blame the president’s wife. I respect her as a person and I appreciate the fact that she voiced out her frustration and anger at me.
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“That was better than those who pretend to be friends but would go to the president to say ‘Your attorney general is not with you; your attorney general is an APC member; he has sympathy for President Buhari. He is a Buhari boy’.
“In any case, most of those who were talking were the same people who contributed money to Buhari’s campaign. I, Mohammed Bello Adoke, never contributed money to Buhari’s campaign.”
Adoke made some revelations about the trial of Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).
He said a lawyer close to Tinubu played a huge role in the trial.
“Let me clarify this issue very well. Bola Tinubu’s trial took place, it was his case with Code of Conduct Tribunal. It was a very unfortunate thing. But what most people don’t know is that a lot of people who claimed to be close to Bola Tinubu, a particular human rights lawyer, was the one that engineered that trial,” he said.
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