Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Kola
Awodein, has reacted to news making the rounds that he gave Justice Niyi
Ademola of the Federal High Court, currently standing trial for alleged
corruption, the sum of N500,000.00 on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari,
during the contrived certificate issue. In a statement issued on Wednesday,
Awodein said:
"I am constrained to make in
absolute good faith, in good conscience and in the interest of justice and fair
play the following very short statement on account of the distorted news story
currently being peddled as affecting the person of Mr. President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria and my good and very noble self.
"The very simple and plain
facts are as follows:
"I have known as a friend and
for well over 35 years Mr. Justice Niyi Ademola, a notorious fact known to
majority of lawyers who have practised especially in Lagos for over that same
period more or less and also to so many other professionals of other
disciplines and other prominent and not so prominent Nigerians.
"It's a fact that the sum of
money mentioned was personally paid by me as a friend to Mr. Justice Ademola as
a personal gift, as our custom well recognizes and demands, on the occasion of
his daughter's High Society wedding solemnised at the Cathedral Church of
Christ, Marina, Lagos, on the 9th of May 2015, which I attended in person.
"I was fully convinced then,
as I remain today, that I could do no less as a friend of long-standing to
fairly reasonably support him on that memorable occasion of his daughter's
wedding.
"Anyone and everyone who knows
me would readily and unquestionably testify that I have always been a man of
impeccable integrity on and off the Courts and that such a record speaks always
loudly for itself.
"I would conclude by stating
categorically and without any equivocation that any link whatsoever with Mr.
President, or any court case or cases, of my personal gift from my personal
resources delivered to Justice Niyi Ademola by myself on that occasion or
any suggestion whatsoever that it was anything but such a gift or that it ever
came from Mr. President or at his instance or that I was acting, under any
circumstances, on his behalf is most malicious, utterly ridiculous and in very poor
and revolting taste and most undeserving of any further comments.
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