A Litigation With No End – By Vice President Kashim Shettima, GCON

Nigeria has endured the silence of too many who left public service with their stories sealed in the vaults of memory. Our public service is a territory governed by silence. There is silence to preserve relationships. There is silence to protect secrets too delicate to disclose. And there is silence for memories we would rather forget. As a generation of leaders, we must summon the courage to document our journeys.

2. Our host today, Mr Mohammed Bello Adoke, is a stranger to neither storytelling nor public scrutiny. He is, first and foremost, a lawyer. His new book, OPL 245: The Inside Story of the $1.3 Billion Oil Block, is a recollection of events that still stir debate. These debates unfold in boardrooms and newsrooms. They echo through political circles and around dinner tables. In his own words, he was bloodied but unbowed. This is a sentiment familiar to anyone who has walked the corridors of power in this country.
3. So, I must say this, without equivocation: each of us who has had the privilege of serving this country owes the people an account of our stewardship. Our stories are not ours alone. They belong to the nation. They belong to history. We must never forget that public service is, in the end, a life lived on the dock in the court of public opinion.
4. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that those named in this book will tell their own side of the story. That, indeed, is how history finds its balance. Every witness must speak. Every accused person must speak. Every participant must speak. And as they do, we are reminded of a sobering truth. Life itself is a litigation with no end. There is no final adjournment in the pursuit of justice. There is no permanent discharge in the reckoning of history. We are always being summoned. Not by a judge, but by conscience and by posterity.
5. This book, therefore, is an access card to the next phase of hearings in the court of public opinion. The pages of this work will inspire debates. They will provoke rebuttals. They will ignite fresh investigations. These conversations will take place in drawing rooms, in lecture halls, and in the columns of tomorrow’s newspapers. But this is the nature of storytelling. It expands the moment it is shared with the public.
6. Those who have walked this path carry scars that do not always show. They bear burdens that do not always make it into official reports. That is why we must commend every attempt to document our stories. Not because they are perfect, but because they are necessary. Not because they end the conversation, but because they begin it.
7. The courts may close. The headlines may fade. The official records may be revised. But the conscience of a nation never adjourns. In that eternal courtroom, we are all on trial. Not only for what we did, but for what we dared to remember. For what we dared to reveal. And for what we dared to pass on.
8. As we leave here today, we must realise something fundamental: this culture of accounting for our place in history shall remain our solemn pact until we draw our final breath. It is a duty that binds us to one another and to the generations yet unborn. We must continue to honour this calling until we arrive at that ultimate destination where our stories are no longer ours to tell, where our memory yields to eternity, and where judgement is neither appealed nor revised, but sealed forever.
9. Thank you, and may God bless us all.

[Being the speech of His Excellency, Senator Kashim Shettima, Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, at the Public Presentation of the Book “OPL 245: The Inside Story of the $1.3 Billion Oil Block” by Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN, in Abuja, on Thursday, July 10, 2025.]