Former governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State

Former Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko mounted pressure on a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) to prosecute President Muhammadu Buhari as candidate of now ruling All Progressives Congress for certificate forgery.

The former AGF who is on the run over allegations of involvement in multi-billion dollars scam however said he resisted the pressure by insisting that there was no fact to prosecute then then presidential candidate on.

But Adoke spoke on the pressure put on him to haul Buhari before the courts in a statement read on his behalf in Abuja by Ovation Publisher Dele Momodu at the presentation of a book, “On a Platter of Gold: How Jonathan won and lost Nigeria,” written by a former Minister of Sports Bolaji Abdullahi.

The ex-AGF said in the letter: “Further to our discussion sir, I hereby confirm that what Bolaji wrote in his book in respect of Mimiko putting pressure on me to issue a fiat to prosecute PMB (Buhari) is true.

“A lawyer had previously written to seek my fiat to prosecute PMB for forgery and I declined on the ground that there were no materials placed before me to exercise my discretion and that the request does not satisfy the legal threshold for me to exercise my discretion to grant fiat to prosecute General Buhari.

“Subsequent to that, I was called by Governor Mimiko who tried to prevail on me to issue the fiat for political expediency and I refused by making it very clear to him that the legal threshold for the exercise of my discretion has not been met and that in any case, assuming General Buhari has no secondary school certificate, he has the equivalent of a school certificate as he is a retired General and a former Head of State and thus satisfied the qualification requirement of the constitution to contest the office of the president.

“I further informed him that the Court of Appeal, Benin had settled the law in that aspect. I left him and proceeded to brief the President on my encounter with Governor Mimiko and my response to his request. President Jonathan agreed with me and said I should uphold the letters of the constitution and the law…”

“And l added that he (Buhari) attended the War College in the United States as a serving General and as such more than qualified to contest…”