By Monsuru Arilesere
In a recent discussion about how President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointees in key government departments had fared, a friend blatantly singled out some members of the president’s cabinet and wondered how they retained their positions in spite of either gross incompetence or piles of controversies, or both.Â
A few ministers and heads of agencies got ‘honorary mentions’ on my friend’s list of heads which should have rolled long ago on grounds of ineptitude and/or scandals, many bothering on corruption and disregard for the rule of law. He wondered why they were retained.
However, the name of one appointee was unrivaled on my friend’s list. “As important as the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice is,†my friend lamented, “I find it difficult to understand why we moved from a hot akara frypan which was Mohammed Bello Adoke to the red hot suya fire which Abubakar Malami has been for over seven years.â€
But how things got worse in terms of who heads the legal arm of the federal government primarily concerned with bringing cases before the judiciary that are initiated or assumed by the government didn’t worry my friend as much as why Malami was retained over Buhari’s two terms, even when he appeared to have become a liability.
Malami may have published a memoir, ‘Traversing the Thorny Terrain of Nigeria’s Justice Sector; My Travails and Triumphs,’ chronicling the challenges and successes he achieved as a minister, but no Buhari minister courted and oozed controversy like the nation’s chief prosecutor. From allegations of falsification of documents to diversion of recovered money; interference in corruption cases, cutting deals, and using his influence to remove those in his way, his name just kept popping up in the same sentence with scandals.
In fact, in an editorial that evaluated Buhari’s anti-corruption war, The Punch newspaper fingered Malami’s indiscretions as part of the reasons why the war on corruption floundered, despite appreciable gains. “In the event, inter-agency rivalry reigned. The State Security Service effectively prevented Magu from being confirmed by the Senate. He was eventually forced out by an alliance of regime insiders including the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami…
“Fatal to the enterprise also was the failure to headhunt an AGF with a known passion to crush corruption. Malami never demonstrated this ardour,†the newspaper wrote.
This crucial point raised by The Punch cannot be dismissed, especially in the context of what transpired between Malami and the former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman, Ibrahim Magu. Recall that in 2020, Malami and Magu had clashed over conflicting orders on seized assets, notably when the AGF authorised the auction of several sea vessels holding crude oil and diesel. Malami directed Omoh-Jay Nigeria Ltd. to auction the vessels despite previous theft allegations against the company.
That was the beginning of the end of Magu’s chairmanship of the EFCC.
In 2021, Premium Times exclusively reported that for years Malami disregarded repeated warnings against the suspicious $418 million judgment debts said to be owed by the states and their local governments with respect to the Paris Club refunds.
It was revealed the AGF was facilitating the payment of the $418 million by deducting it from the shares of the various states from the Federation Account to pay consultants who were allegedly engaged by state governments to secure refunds after the Federal Government paid $12 billion from the Federation Account to get an $18 billion debt written off by the Paris Club of international creditors in 2006.
In response, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) rose from a meeting to describe the position of Malami on the payment of refunds to some consultants as fraudulent, self-serving and against the public interest.
When the AGF appeared before a House of Representatives committee to answer for the suspected diversion of recovered laundered money intended for the consolidated revenue account along with other alleged improprieties, he denied any wrongdoing and his defence was supported by the then Accountant-General of the Federation Ahmed Idris.
Guess who is now standing trial for stealing N109 billion from the government!
In May 2022, the Federal High Court in Lagos nullified the Asset Tracing, Recovery and Management Regulations signed by Malami in 2019 for being “an invalid statutory instrument.†The court also nullified all sales and disposals of assets made by the AGF under the regulation.
It argued that the Regulations conflicted with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Act, Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administrative Act, 2015, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Act, 2004, and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission Act (ICPC), 2000, among others, on the matter of disposal of final-forfeited assets.
Three months after the court ruling, Ladidi Mohammed, head of the asset recovery and management unit, Ministry of Justice, and a close ally of Malami, was detained for days and grilled by the EFCC over allegations of fraudulent sale of recovered assets worth billions.
Apparently, the AGF was using an “invalid statutory instrument†to dispose of some assets which were forfeited to the federal government by persons undergoing corruption trials.
There were also the “small†matters of Nigeria’s number one law officer violating the Twitter ban imposed by the government by using a virtual private network (VPN) to bypass access restriction and a lavish wedding threw for his son in the middle of the pandemic and government-imposed lockdowns in 2020, in direct violation of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control’s guidelines.
Many people have commented on how President Buhari had all good intentions and if we judge by his body language, those intentions could be genuine. However, with the power and influence Malami wields and is not shy to use in the Buhari administration, despite his credibility deficit, the president fell short by not showing him the door.
Borrowing my friend’s analogy of akara frypan and suya fire, we all love the deliciousness of those popular Nigerian snacks. But Adoke’s frypan was already hot enough when Malami’s fire finished the work. So, may we not have their likes ever again as Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation!
Arilesere, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Ibadan, Oyo State
