John Inyang Okoro, a justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, has written a letter to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mahmood Mohammed accusing Buhari’s transport minister, Rotimi Amaechi of attempting to bribe him to pervert justice in the matters of the appeal of election tribunal judgements for Akwa Ibom, Rivers, and Abia states.
In the letter dated, Tuesday, October 17, 2016, Justice Okoro recounted visits to his home by Amaechi, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and offering to bribe him with millions to influence the judgements in favour of the APC candidates in those three states.
Justice Okoro also recounts having a conversation with the chief justice in which Mohammed also said that he was visited by Rotimi Amaechi with the same offer being placed before him.
Umana Umana, the APC candidate for governorship in Akwa Ibom for the 2015 elections is also accused of suggesting that he could pay a bribe to Supreme Court justices through Inyang to obtain a favourable judgement.
A native of Akwa Ibom, Okoro is one of the judges targeted in the crackdown on the judiciary by the country’s secret police, the State Security Services, SSS, also known by the acronym of its mailing address, the DSS. The arrest of judges was ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The eminent judge also said that operatives of the SSS pointed guns at him in his home and threatened to shoot him. According to Justice Okoro, he was tricked into believing someone who worked at the presidency was at his door to deliver a letter from the president. But, when he opened the door, he found armed agents of the SSS.
The SSS agents told him they were there to search his home. Which he allowed out of fear for his life. He said he tried to call the chief justice, but the agents violently collected is phone from him, preventing him from making a phone call.
The agents searched his house and carted away his money and other valuables.
His account mirrors that of a federal judge, Adeniyi Ademola who said that at several times during the midnight raid at his home, operatives of the secret police threatened to shot him in connection with his judgements in the case of a former national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki and leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu.
The Trent has confirmed the authenticity of the letter. Screenshots of the explosive letter are below.
