Sponsors Of Terrorism Should Be Tried Now

 By Femi Falana

Sometime in August 2019, a gang of 10 soldiers led by an Army Captain ambushed and killed the  three police officers who had arrested an alleged kidnap suspect, Bala Hamisu (a.k.a.Wadume) in Jalingo, Taraba State. 

The cold murder of the police officers was designed to cover up the involvement of the soldiers in the several killings and illegal collection of hundreds of millions of Naira as ransom by the kidnappers who had terrorised the people of Taraba State for about three years.

*Falana

The suspected killer soldiers were charged with terrorism in the Federal High Court by the Nigeria Police Force. But in  a complete abuse of his powers under section 174 of the Constitution,  the Attorney- General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami SAN filed a nolle prosequi and withdrew the charges pending against the soldiers at the Federal High Court. 

They have since been shielded from prosecution without any legal or moral justification. Our demand for the arrest and prosecution of the suspects has been ignored by the Federal Government.

Nigeria: Abubakar Malami's Incredible Faux Pas

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

The best value sincere friends and associates of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Abubakar Malami, can inject in his career now would be to ensure that he schools himself to always speak sparingly and recognise the need to regularly deploy more time and effort to benefit from informed legal inputs before responding to very serious issues. The office he occupies is such an important and strategic one whose submissions on legal controversies Nigerians can confidently rely upon. It is always very disheartening whenever his interventions on very weighty national affairs are easily faulted by Nigerians, including even street traders and roadside mechanics. 

  *Malami with the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing

When the 17 Southern governors met in Asaba on May 11, 2021, and   announced a ban on open grazing behind which gun-wielding Fulani herdsmen had for several years now hidden to commit various atrocities like brutal rapes of women and daughters, wanton destructions of crops, maiming or killing of farmers and the invasion and razing of communities, AGF Malami had rushed out to describe the governors’ resolution as “unconstitutional” and “dangerous.”

On Channels TV, Malami pronounced: “It is about constitutionality within the context of the freedoms expressed in our constitution…For example, it is as good as saying, perhaps, maybe, the northern governors coming together to say they prohibit spare parts trading in the north.”

The magisterial carriage with which this obviously very pedestrian and preposterous intervention was delivered must have deepened the astonishment of many Nigerians. How can a “learned gentleman” (least of all the AGF) compare violent herdsmen who appear to derive hideous animation from wantonly destroying farmlands and visiting their owners with diverse destructions and violations to motor spare parts traders who peacefully hire shops from their owners, pay taxes to government and undertake their business in ways that do not inflict any harm on anyone?

Nigeria: If Only AGF Malami Would Learn To Talk Sparingly

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

The best value sincere friends and associates of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Abubakar Malami, can inject in his career now would be to ensure that he schools himself to always speak sparingly and recognise the need to regularly deploy more time and effort to benefit from informed legal inputs before responding to very serious issues. The office he occupies is such an important and strategic one whose submissions on legal controversies Nigerians can confidently rely upon. It is always very disheartening whenever his interventions on very weighty national affairs are easily faulted by Nigerians, including even street traders and roadside mechanics. 
  

*President Buhari and Malami

When the 17 Southern governors met in Asaba on May 11, 2021, and   announced a ban on open grazing behind which gun-wielding Fulani herdsmen had for several years now hidden to commit various atrocities like brutal rapes of women and daughters, wanton destructions of crops, maiming or killing of farmers and the invasion and razing of communities, AGF Malami had rushed out to describe the governors’ resolution as “unconstitutional” and “dangerous.”

Of Abacha Loot, Malami And Twisted Narrative

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

A narrative in a section of the media about the repatriation of our national assets stashed in a number of foreign jurisdictions by the late former head of state, General Sani Abacha, has been insidiously skewed against the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN). The narrative has become so routinely rehashed that the underlying motive has now become writ large to the uncritical readers: it is purely to tar Malami with the brush of malfeasance in the loot repatriation. The overarching goal is to damage the Malami persona, discount his integrity capital and contaminate the whiff of his discretionary prowess in decision-taking.

*Gen Abacha 

The rash of calumnious campaigns against Malami finds anchorage in the determination of the contract of the Swiss lawyer, Enrico Monfrini, and the engagement of a team of Nigerian lawyers-Oladipo Okpeseyi (SAN) and Tope Adebayo-in Monfrini’s stead to complete the processes that he began. The Olusegun Obasanjo administration had engaged Monfrini in 1999 to trace, confiscate and repatriate looted Nigerian funds kept in coded accounts by Abacha. From 1999 up until 2016 when Malami disengaged Monfrini, the Swiss had turned the repatriation into a slush fund in service of a cartel. The good news is that Malami had since dismantled the cartel to the chagrin of vested interest.