It has been one controversy after another, especially as they relate to allegation of underhand dealings in governance levelled against the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami. Some of these allegations have made him to face probe panels in both chambers of the National Assembly in the past. JOSHUA EGBODO writes
MTN and other controversies
From the negotiated downward review of a $5.2 billion fine slammed against the South African-owned telecommunications giant, MTN by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) to as low as N330 million, to the controversial return from exile and secret reinstatement of former presidential taskforce boss on pension reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina, into the nation’s civil service, and now the reported plan to pay two Nigerian lawyers about $17 million as legal fee for recovery of the Abacha loot. In all, the AGF was fingered, and had separately faced parliamentary panels.
The House of Representatives last Thursday, resolved for the umpteenth time to engage Malami over his alleged complicity in the proposed payment to the lawyers, who were reportedly engaged to negotiate the $321 million Abacha loot, a job said to have been completed by a Swiss lawyer.
The House in passing the resolution also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently stop all processes on the request for the payment of the $17 million, pending the outcome of its planned investigation into the matter.
The request was alleged to have emanated from the AGF to President Muhammadu Buhari, seeking approval of the payment, while the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, reportedly wrote an advisory letter to the President, not to approve the request.
Motion against $17m payment
A member of the House, Hon. Mark Gbillah, in a motion on the development tagged; ‘Need to investigate the proposed payment of $17 million to Lawyers by the Attorney General of the Federation for recovery of ‘Abacha Loot’, prayed the House to therefore, direct an urgent investigation into the matter, as well as order stoppage of the plan, pending the outcome of the probe, which were subsequently adopted by the House.
The lawmaker informed the House that Mr Enrico Monfrini, a Swiss lawyer, was engaged by the Nigerian government since 1999 to work on recovering the Abacha loot for which the sum of $321 million was a part, and had finished the Luxembourg leg of the job since 2014 when Mohammed Bello Adoke was the Attorney-General of the Federation.
Further, it added that Mr Mofrini had since been paid by the federal government for his legal services for the recovery of the money, which was then domiciled with the Attorney-General of Switzerland pending the signing of an MoU with Nigeria to avoid the issues of accountability surrounding earlier recoveries.
“All that was left was the signing of the MoU which is a government-to- government communication for the money to be repatriated to Nigeria.
“Abubakar Malami, SAN, the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, had curiously engaged the services of another set of Nigerian Lawyers in 2016, namely, Oladipo Okpeseyi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), and Temitope Adebayo for a fee of $16.9 million (about N6 billion), without due process,” Gbillah argued.
The lawmaker, therefore, queried the rationale behind engaging the Nigerians lawyers who had worked for President Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), a legacy party of the All Progressive Congress (APC), when Malami was also the legal adviser of the CPC, pointing out that there was no justification for such engagement in what should be a government-to-government negotiation.
“The terms of the agreement reached with Mr. Mofrini for the recovery clearly spelt out that no other lawyer would be engaged for the return of the money to Nigeria”, he submitted.
Members’ concern
Members including Chairman of the Committee on Public Petitions, Uzoma Nkem-Abonta, chairman, and his Diaspora Matters counterpart, Rita Orji similarly expressed concerns, especially over allegation and counter allegation on the letter purportedly written by the Finance Minister, advising the President against the payment.
Nkem-Abonta emphasized the need for the House’s intervention with a view to preventing corruption and over-invoicing by some public office holders, adding that “there was no justification for someone to get $17 million free money. Then what is the work of the Attorney General of the Federation?”
Adhoc committee
Speaker Yakubu Dogara, who presided over the plenary, also expressed concern about such payment stressing paying such money can be unilaterally approved by the presidency, and payment effected without approval of the National Assembly. Members later voted in support of constituting an Ad hoc committee to investigate the allegations, and report its findings back within six weeks.
This would not be the first time Malami would be facing a panel of the House, but followers of events in the parliament have argued whether this may be of any significance, especially since reports of earlier investigations into alleged fraudulent practices by the same man are yet to be made public.
No date has been fixed for commencement of the probe, when the panel is in place, but Nigerians are yet anxiously waiting.
