Abdusalami Abubakar, Nigeria's former dictator has again shunned a Michigan court in the suit brought against him by NADECO chieftain and the family of the late Moshood Abiola, including Chief Anthony Enahoro, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Dr. Arthur Nwankwo, Mr. Femi Aborisade, and Ms. Hafsat Abiola.
The case was originally brought against Nigeria’s former military dictators and one civilian ruler. The plaintiffs are Chief Anthony Enahoro, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Dr. Arthur Nwankwo, Mr. Femi Aborisade and Ms Hafsat Abiola. The co-defendants in the case are General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, General Abdusalami Abubakar and Chief Ernest Shonekan, a civilian who was imposed on Nigerians in 1993 by General Ibrahim Babangida when he left office.
Some Nigerians working for NADECO went to a Chicago State University event at which the summons were served. However, only General Abubakar attended and was served in person. The other defendants were served through the Nigerian ambassador to the US. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit where the suits were filed decided to hear the case against General Abubakar since there was incontrovertible evidence that he was served in person.
What is an Igbo man like Arthur Nwankwo doing with his name in a Yoruba/edo/Urhobo law suit? Doesn't he have enough problems of his own?
Posts: 113 | From: USA | Registered: Aug 2001
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Last night, I met someone, whom I later discovered is a co-plaintiff in the suit brought against BiafraNigeria’s former dictator, Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar. During our conversation, the said co-plaintiff asked what I thought about the suit. For reasons best known to him, he did not at the time of our conversation, nor at any other point during our meeting, indicate that he was a plaintiff in the suit. Thus, not knowing of his involvement in the suit, my answer to him was simple and it was not tailored to his situation.
First, I informed him that I was not familiar with all of the facts of the case. However, I reminded him that 1) Chief Anthony Enahoro is the best known BiafraNigerian involved in the suit and the man with whom the suit is generally associated, 2) that Chief Anthony Enahoro held high offices and spent most of his political life making the case that BiafraNigeria’s institutions, including her courts, were near perfect and functioned as they ought to; that, Enahoro did so during the Nigeria-Biafra War, after the war, and during the critical part of post-independence antebellum BiafraNigeria, and 3) that the alleged acts and conducts of Abdusalami Abubakar or any other defendants for which Enahoro seeks redress all took place in BiafraNigeria. Therefore, I told the co-plaintiff, it was highly dubious for Chief Enahoro to file his suit in the US, instead of in BiafraNigeria, his beloved country.
My discovery that the gentleman in question is a plaintiff in the suit fully explains the chagrin with which he and his friends received my response. Therefore, I will consider interesting myself enough in this case to write a BNW Magazine article about it.
___________________ Where Law Ends, Tyranny Begins. --- Lord Chatham (William Pitt) Posts: 25 | From: Maryland, USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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But I heard that you also said that the law suit was a waste with nothing but a "noise value."
Posts: 19 | From: London | Registered: Aug 2002
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Emeka, I find it suspicious that someone would ask you about a law suit in which he is one of the plaintiffs and neglect to tell you that he is a plaintiff in that suit. From what you’ve written, I get the impression that you had heard of the suit, but were unaware of the secondary co-plaintiffs. That being the case, the person with whom you were speaking should have revealed his role in the suit, although in view of the origin and underlying facts of this case, I believe that your position would have remained the same regardless of this person’s involvement.
Legally speaking, a suit of this nature is noisy. Not only is it noisy, it is frivolous and a waste of the court’s time for several reasons. From what I’ve gathered from previous revelations in this thread and elsewhere, the case is basically at a standstill because the defendant refuses to be deposed in the United States. He is reported to have said that if the plaintiffs want to depose him, they should do so in Nigeria.
So, the question becomes, what does any smart plaintiff do when a defendant refuses to cooperate in one jurisdiction. Simple. That plaintiff should follow him to a jurisdiction from which the defendant cannot escape. In this instance, that jurisdiction is Nigeria.
At this point, bringing the suit in the United States is senseless. Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, they may have fallen victim to lawyer(s) who have failed to properly advise them of their realistic chances of success in the United States. As hard as it is for me to admit, there are lawyers out there who should be better referred to as shysters and will take undue advantage of the hapless.
quote:The case was originally brought against Nigeria’s former military dictators and one civilian ruler. The plaintiffs are Chief Anthony Enahoro, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Dr. Arthur Nwankwo, Mr. Femi Aborisade and Ms Hafsat Abiola. The co-defendants in the case are General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, General Abdusalami Abubakar and Chief Ernest Shonekan, a civilian who was imposed on Nigerians in 1993 by General Ibrahim Babangida when he left office.
Some Nigerians working for NADECO went to a Chicago State University event at which the summons were served. However, only General Abubakar attended and was served in person. The other defendants were served through the Nigerian ambassador to the US. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit where the suits were filed decided to hear the case against General Abubakar since there was incontrovertible evidence that he was served in person.
From what I know, Enahoro left the United States and moved back to Nigeria and is actually working with the ruling party, PDP. Fawehinmi, a successful lawyer, resides in Nigeria, and is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria *(SAN). Nwankwo ran for president of Nigeria during these last presidential elections under a party that he formed. Hafsat Abiola is a member of the late Moshood Abiola family based in Nigeria and who made millions from contracts awarded by the government of Nigeria. All of the defendants are in Nigeria.
Presumably, if all plaintiffs and all defendants are in Nigeria, if all alleged crimes and wrongs were committed in Nigeria while all alleged victims and all defendants were in Nigeria, why is a law suit being filed in the United States of America?
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a sad attempt at forum shopping, which makes for a noisy suit. The only possible reason for filing this type of suit in the US is because the plaintiffs are interested in a big payoff and the lawyers in cheap publicity for themselves. This is not about justice for any wrongs committed against the plaintiffs. This is about filing a suit where the plaintiffs believe they will most likely be awarded big money. If this were about justice, the plaintiffs would have gone to the UN court system and filed suit based on crimes against humanity. Alternatively, if the plaintiffs felt they had to file in the US, why not file in criminal court where the defendants would be jailed should they be found guilty as charged? Why file in a civil court where the only possible remedy is monetary compensation? You decide.
The bottom line is that these plaintiffs all believe in Nigeria and its institutions. They are persons who derived personal benefits from the State until their benefits were only briefly interrupted by a period in which their adversaries were in power. If this were a test of their beliefs and patriotism, they have failed miserably. And why have they failed? They have failed because their belief in Nigeria is obviously false, which means that all outward appearance that they give, i.e. moving back to Nigeria, running for president, etc. are motivated by something other than patriotism. They are hypocrites and opportunists who gain from Nigeria’s corruption when it suits them to do so, and abandon everything they say they stand for when it suits them to do so. This type of behavior smacks of a distinct lack of conviction and an inability to be true to anything.
The suit being brought in a US court is inconvenient for everyone. Imagine having to travel all the way from Nigeria to the US every time you have to attend a hearing that lasts 15-30 minutes. That is frankly silly.
I am an American, for what its worth. I don’t believe in everything American and I don’t agree with a lot of things that America does. But, if something were to happen to me in America brought about by Americans, I would not run to Timbuktu to file a suit. My butt would be in an American court because that’s where it would belong. Similarly, the plaintiffs and defendants in this case belong in a court in Nigeria.
It makes little difference that Abubakar was served here. He won’t come to court and the court is severely limited in its options in pursuing him. And the idea of serving the other defendants in the US through the Nigerian Ambassador to the US is, well, laughable. If I understand jurisdictional questions and civil procedure correctly, the ambassador has not been designated by the remaining defendants to act as their resident agent for any purpose. Perhaps that may, MAY have been the case if a suit were filed against a head of state while he was still in office, but that, again, makes little sense. But that is not even the case, even though I believe it is a stretch of the principles governing the establishment of personal jurisdiction. The remaining defendants were sued at a time that they were ordinary citizens. If it were so simple, I could sue anyone in Nigeria by serving a summons on the Nigerian embassy here in the US, or any of you living here in the US could be sued by anyone in Nigeria simply by serving papers to the US Embassy in Abuja. Or, any Nigerian in Diaspora could sue anyone in Nigeria through the Nigerian embassy located in any country. That is silly. Simply because a country has an embassy in another country does not mean that any citizen of that country has de facto established the minimum contacts necessary for a court to have personal jurisdiction over a potential defendant.
Posts: 31 | From: USA | Registered: Aug 2001
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I agree with you. It was dishonest for the co-plaintiff to bring up the matter without first stating his involvement in the suit. What you should know is that while Nigeria is a poor and wretched country, it is not without its men with oversized ego. The plaintiff in question is probably one of those men, and his ego suffered a crushing blow when he learned that Emeka has not bothered to learn that he is involved in the suit. Well, let me help his perspective a little. I too have not bothered to read the details of that suit because it is quite simply a stupid law suit for the reasons already given above. The sad part of the whole thing is that some people back home will suffer for the foolishness of the clowns that filed that suit in the US.
Arthur Nwankwo has freedom of association. But, if the best way he knows to express that freedom is by churning out childish pro-Yoruba pamphlets, then he should stop pretending to be an Igbo nationalist.
___________________ Biafra All The Way Posts: 202 | Registered: Mar 2001
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quote:Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, they may have fallen victim to lawyer(s) who have failed to properly advise them of their realistic chances of success in the United States. As hard as it is for me to admit, there are lawyers out there who should be better referred to as shysters and will take undue advantage of the hapless.
Renee:
Excellent analysis. But, the plaintiffs in this case are too greedy to be considered "hapless," a term that tends to shift a good portion of the blame to their lawyers for making this suit idiotic by bringing it in the US. You forgot to mention that Gani Fawehinmi was also a candidate for president in the last elections. So, in him, we are also looking at a man with an eye on the highest office in BiafraNigeria. As a lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi is very adept at using the courts in BiafraNigeria to get what he wants. It was Gani Fawehinmi that sued the BiafraNigerian Elecloral Commission and got his party and many other parties registered for the last elections.
In the context of this law suit filed in the US, the victimhood of all the plaintiffs is fraudulent because the plaintiffs are all members of BiafraNigeria's elite class, and as you have correctly noted, they are believers in and defenders of the BiafraNigerian system. The readiness of the plaintiffs to fly in and out of the US for very short, often out-of-court, evidentiary hearings at the invitation of their lawyers is clear evidence of the expense that the plaintiffs are willing to bear to further their fraud. Abdusalami Abubakar is right to ignore the charlatans.
Posts: 145 | Registered: Mar 2001
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I had often wondered about Arthur Nwankwo's dealings with Yoruba people and other enemies of the Igbo Nation. Last night, I spoke to a friend of mine who described Arthur Nwankwo as a mole, an agent of the Yoruba. I cannot fathom why he has his hand in this suit, except for financial gains. It is a disgrace.
Posts: 159 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I think what Nwankwo has done if the story is true is that he has complicated matters further, which suggests his view of Biafra legacy is dead. I weep for my people.
___________________ LET THERE BE PEACE Posts: 22 | From: D-Line, Port Harcourt | Registered: Feb 2003
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Guys The only reason this case was ever instituted was for almighty dollars. Arthur Nwankwo thought that if he latched on to Igbo haters he will prevail in American court. Like Renee said the lawyers should advised this money grabber that their chances are zero to none. Then again the plaintiffs in this case are the same group that have distroyed Biafranigeria. In short they are getting what they deserve.
Aburi was a conference organised by an illegitimate junta in Ghana and attended by illegitimate junta from Nigeria. How could Mr. Ehirim compare that to a duly constituted Sovereign National Conference or a conference of ethnic nationalities?
Posts: 91 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2001
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Na real wah oh. Ibi like say this kalabule go soon turn to wetin pass man oh. Di smesme now come be like say dey no wan make sleeping dog dey lie oh until so tey alarm come begin blow.
Na real wah!
___________________ NA MY PAPA BORN ME Posts: 389 | From: Eugene, Oregon | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote: I am not too familiar with the Nigeria Police and Court procedure, but I would assume the basic information like DOB, MUGSHOT & FINGERPRINT of an arrested person are collected on first booking.
bababoyz Villager Posts: 75 (2/7/04 1:22) Reply Was Governor Ibori an Ex-Convict? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Supreme Court has affirmed the judgment of the Appeal Court on the conviction of one “James Onaneye Ibori, but unfortunately the real issue at stake is yet to be determined. The unanswered question now is was it Governor Ibori that was convicted or there is another person who shared the governor exact name?
However, am curious to know if there was any fingerprint and mug shot of the convicted fellow, which I think if produced will put the whole case to rest. I am not too familiar with the Nigeria Police and Court procedure, but I would assume the basic information like DOB, MUGSHOT & FINGERPRINT of an arrested person are collected on first booking.
May the real convicted James Onaneye Ibori step forward!
___________________ Feel me? Ofu onye ana asi unu abia go. - Ednut Igbo-American . www.airamericaradio.com visit her. Posts: 2447 | From: Mother Earth | Registered: Mar 2001
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Quote: ------------------------- "Aburi was a conference organised by an illegitimate junta in Ghana and attended by illegitimate junta from Nigeria."---Adekunle. -------------------------
What are you also talkng about? If the Aburi Conference was what you errenously said it was, how come you fought with same "junta" regime in a war to thwart the aspiration of a people (the Easterners) who refused to recognize the "illegitimate junta" in the first place? Doesn't that support the argument of those that say that you Yorubas are from the day Nigeria got her flag independence guity of legitimizing the illegitimate (directly and indrectly supporting military governments) in Nigeria?
All, The case against Abubakar and co was bound to fail because it was an attempt by pro-Yoruba group/individuals to make the world believe that its only the Northerners/muslims that are good at milking Nigeria dry, using the "illegimate" military as a milk-can.
Luckily, as we see and know, Obasanjo's 'democratic' regime is no better than that of the Abubakars - both in dictatorialism and divertion of state funds. So the pro-Yoruba case can best be described as a POT CALLING A KETTLE BLACK. QED.
Posts: 997 | From: Germany | Registered: Mar 2001
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Ambrose Ehirim is absolutely right. Every step of the way, General Ojukwu was ready for that semi-illiterate Tiv man named Yakubu Gowon. That moron, Gowon, went to Aburi and signed an agreement. When Gowon failed to honor the agreement, here is what General Ojukwu had to say, On Aburi We Stand: The Distortion of Aburi Accord
Today, everyone knows what was agreed at Aburi. The failure to carry out that agreement is the reason that BiafraNigeria WILL NEVER KNOW PEACE.
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