Garrulous Malami and long arm of law, by Kola Amzat

With no shadow of doubt, the darkest spot of late president, Muhammud Buhari administration remains the inglorious activities of Abubakar Malami in the office, as Minister of Justice, Attorney General of Federation,

Indeed, millions of Nigerian couldn’t comprehend why it took the relevant anti-corruption Agency of government years before beaming searchlight on the despicable activities of Kebbi born Lawyer while he was at the helm of affairs.

Malami capitalized on late president’s Laissez-faire approach to governance to ‘inaugurate’ a parallel presidency within Aso Villa, seizing the nation mantle of leadership, as well as manipulating the country in a chess-game scenario.

In his height of infamy, he was reported to have deployed all resources within his disposal in his attempt to succeed the late president.

Of course, in his wildest imagination, he would never have imagined that another regime would berth to subject him to have his days in the court of judgement for the purpose of accounting for loads of devilish acts while he was in charge.

This account for the reasons why he’s not been cooperating with EFCC officials….. Demeanour that could best be described as grandstanding.

Nigerians are asking: what’s the worth of Abubakar Malami before his assumption of office as Minister of Justice in 2015 and what’s the worth of his vast business empire when he vacated in 2023?

A young charge and bail Lawyer operating within Abuja premises of courts prior to been appointed as minister in 2015, suddenly became owner of sets of five (5) star hotels in the North West zone, multiple vast estate in Abuja and other choice locations in the country, as well as foreign countries!

How could Malami defend this sudden stupendous wealth!

Malami is presently in custody of EFCC over alleged financial impropriety linked to his tenure as Attorney General and Justice Minister, with particular reference to his role in the celebrated repatriation of $321 million stolen by Sani Abacha, former military ruler.

The EFCC alleged that the repatriated fund ran into a storm with suspicious moves that might have amounted to “re-looting the loot” through the backdoor under the Malami Abubakar watch as Minister of Justice, Attorney General of the federation.

This is the fact of the case: the federal government had, between 2013 and 2014, employed the services of Swiss lawyers, Enrico Monfrini and Christian Luscher, to recover the stolen funds from Liechtenstein and Luxembourg — and domiciled the monies with the Attorney-General of Switzerland since then.

Nigeria undertook to pay 4% of the recovered Luxembourg assets as professional fees and expenses to the lawyers, in addition to roughly $6.8 million in fees to be paid to Monfrini for the Liechtenstein recoveries.

With the fees settled, all that was left for the money to be returned to Nigeria, was for Abubakar Malami, Nigeria’s Attorney-General, to sign a MoU with the Swiss authorities and commit to an undertaking that the funds would be properly utilized.

However, in a suspicious move, Malami went ahead to engage two Nigerian lawyers to act on his behalf in a deal that would further cede at least another 4% as commission and professional fees from the recovered funds.

The Nigerian lawyers, Oladipo Okpeseyi, (SAN), and Temitope Isaac Adebayo, were engaged in 2016 apparently to duplicate the job of the Swiss lawyers and obtain their own cut from the already done deal.

Incidentally, Okpeseyi and Adebayo were lawyers to the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the legacy party of President Muhammadu Buhari. Nigerians recall that Malami was legal adviser to defunct CPC.

A simple letter from the office of our Attorney-General of the federation to the Swiss attorney-general requesting the repatriation of the funds to Nigeria consequent upon the signing of an MoU was all that was required to consummate the deal.

From nowhere, Malami moved and appointed another set of lawyers to do his job for him, and for few million dollars too.

These are the allegations EFCC has put across to the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation.

It’s quite evident that all opposition members backing Malami are either mischievous, uninformed, unpatriotic, less discerning or totally oblivious of the issue at hand.

It’s also alleged that the previous repatriations were reportedly mismanaged by the same office of former Minister of Justice, with no obvious benefits for the people of Nigeria, a development that stalled further return of recovered loot to the federal government.

It’s therefore important that Nigerians of goodwill should maximally support EFCC in its laudable and bold move to investigate Malami, particularly in relation to his stewardship while in office, including issues surrounding the Abacha loot.

Other atrocities of Malami while he was in charge of Justice Ministry: During his era, Malami declared Amotekun illegal despite the fact that a religious police, Hisbar has existed in the North since 2003 without such objection.

For about 8 years Malami was in office as AGF, not even once he condemned any atrocities by Hisbar or Miyetti Allah.

Throughout the tenure of the late president, thousands of innocent citizens across many states lost their lives to attacks carried out by herdsmen from the North.

Miyetti Allah records are not different from Boko Haram insurgents.

On many occasions, the Miyetti-Allah Cattle Breeders Association had openly claimed responsibility for homicides and threatened to do more except given free access to other people’s farmlands for cattle-rearing.

Under Malami watch, law graduates from NOUN were technically prevented from been admitted in Law school despite the fact the late president granted to NOUN (Amendment) to resolve any crisis preventing the graduates to be certified as Lawyers by Law schools.

It’s equally in the public domain how EFCC was pawn in the hand of Malami, manipulating the anti-corruption Agency with impunity, to harass and intimidate his enemies.

So, why would he not be made to account for his horrendous and calamitous activities while was in charge as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Federation?

Kola AMZAT (FCA, FCIB)

Lagos based Financial & Management Consultants,

09077509348.