Ex-NIMASA Director General, Mr. Raymond Omatseye who is being tried by the EFCC for N1.5billion contract scam has revealed why the Attorney General of Nigeria and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke wants him jailed at all cost.

“In December 2010, I was approached by a gentleman, who at that time was the Executive Director of the Cabotage Service of NIMASA, in the name of Ibrahim Zailani. Mr. Zailani told me that he had been in a meeting with the Attorney General of the Federation, and that the AGF had directed him to tell me to withdraw a case between NIMASA and the NLNG. I told him I was unable to withdraw the case because it was a board decision.

“Exactly on November 14, 2010 between 12 to one o’clock in my office, I received a call from a gentleman, called Tunde Ayeni. He said, ‘Hello, hold on for your caller’, and then handed the phone over to a man who said he was Mohammed Adoke.

“The man said, ‘I sent Zailani to you to withdraw the NLNG case and you have refused.’ He said, ‘Mr. President has called me twice on this matter to instruct you to withdraw this case.’ I responded, ‘My AG sir, either you please send me a memo to that effect or please send a message through my minister to direct me accordingly; I am not in a position to unilaterally withdraw the case.’ He said, ‘I am the chief law officer of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,’ and I replied, ‘Sir, please help me to do as I have requested.’ He asked if I was aware that there was a directive from his office that no government institution can sue another government institution without his permission, and I told him that the NLNG is majority-owned by foreigners and therefore cannot be considered as a government parastatal or agency.

“At that point he said to me, ‘I have given an instruction and you have refused to obey. This would be your waterloo.’”

Omatseye told the judge that it was exactly 10 days after the telephone conversation with Adoke that three operatives of the EFCC came to pick him up for interrogation.

He narrated how he was taken to the EFCC office in Ikoyi in company with the Director of Procurement and the Director of Finance of NIMASA.

He said that while he was on his way to the EFCC office in Ikoyi, he called the Minister of Transportation, Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman, to inform him of what was going on.

“The question he (Suleiman) asked me first was: do you have any issue with the AGF?” Omatseye told the court.

He added that they were flown to the EFCC office in Abuja the following day where he was confronted with a petition written against him by the Minister of Transportation and which formed the basis of his trial”.