AGF Malami Retools Anti-Corruption Drive, Vows To Prosecute Past Leaders

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, says the next years will witness the prosecution of rogues, including past leaders and private individuals, who have sabotaged the country’s economy.

Speaking on resumption of duty as AGF and justice minister on Thursday, Malami said the Ministry of Justice will beam its anti-corruption searchlight on saboteurs of the economy, especially those responsible for the recent award of $9 Billion against the Nigeria Government by a British court.

The AGF warned that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, “cannot afford to fail on account of lawless acts of the corrupt and unpatriotic few,” who “always derive pleasure in seeing us fail as a nation”.

The minister stated this at an event organized by the Ministry of Justice to celebrate his re-appointment.

He said: “Sadly, in spite of the spirited and concerted efforts of the current administration to combat corrupt practices and rent-seeking in all its forms, Nigerians woke up on Friday 16th August, 2019 to the rudest consequences of the underhand dealings of the past administration that has resulted in the award of $9 Billion against the Federal Republic of Nigeria by a British court which ruled that Process and Industrial Development Limited (P&ID) had the right to seize $9Billion in Nigerian assets.

“It may interest you to know that the dispute that led to the arbitration between the FGN and P&ID which consequently resulted in the said court ruling arose from a twenty (20) year Gas Supply Processing Agreement (GSPA) purportedly entered with P&ID by the past administration in 2010 which contract P&ID never performed as agreed.

“That being said, it must be placed on record that the Federal Government strongly views with serious concerns the underhand manners by which the negotiation, signing and formation of the contract was carried out by some vested interests in the past administration in connivance with their local and international conspirators all in a bid to inflict grave economic adversity on the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the good people of Nigeria.

“As a government that has the mandate of the people, and their interests at heart, we shall not fold our arms and allow this injustice to go unpunished as all efforts, actions and steps shall be taken to bring to book all private individuals, corporate entities and government officials, home or abroad and past or present that played direct and indirect roles in the conception, negotiation, signing, formation as well as prosecution of the purported agreement”.

He decried that the country is bedevilled with an existential crisis of nationhood that is threatening to tear it apart, “with needless calls for separation, dismemberment and ill-motivated restructuring”, blaming it on “long years of failure of our justice system”.

“It is in the light of this that i am determined to rejig the Federal Ministry of Justice (more than I had done in my first term in office) to brace up and approach the challenges that have drawn us back through comprehensive evidence-based judicial reforms capable of ridding the country of its fundamental vices of economic sabotage, insecurity, separatism and systemic corruption by promoting constitutional democracy, rule of law, social justice, economic prosperity and political rights of all Nigerians.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I inform you that the major reason for the seeming failure of our system is the structural defects of our constitution and laws, non-adherence to laws, institutional failure of enforcements, and dysfunctionality of our judicial system which only judicial reforms can reverse if we must exist as a nation”.

He said, “As bad news to the rogues within our financial system, in the next four years, the Federal Ministry of Justice in collaboration within anti-corruption agencies, shall be beaming anti-corruption searchlight on the financial institutions (F18) and Non Designated Financial Institutions (DNFIs) in order to make them pay dearly for the dastardly role they have played and are still playing in encouraging and deepening corruption in Nigeria.

“From arms procurement fraud, INEC bribery case to Diezani case and several others, quantitative data available to the Federal Government abundantly shows that financial institutions are directly involved in most of the major corruption cases investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) from 2015 till date,” he added.