Allegations Against Malami, Family Untrue, Misrepresentation Of Facts — Solicitor Reveals Reasons For Shehu’s Arrest

A former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mr Abubakar Malami has refuted claims that the arrest of a Kaduna-based social activist, Mahdi Shehu, is connected to his critical publications, calling for a probe of his activities while in government.

A statement issued by Shehu’s lawyer, M.I Abubakar revealed that Shehu was reportedly arrested on Tuesday by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Monitoring Unit.

Abubakar revealed that the police had arrested the activist, 24 hours after a post via his verified X account handle, accused some Buhari government officials of sponsoring a campaign of calumny against Mr Jim Obazee.

Obazee is the special investigator appointed by President Bola Tinubu to investigate the tenure of Godwin Emefiele at the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Shehu’s lawyer also alluded to the post indicting Malami as a strong part of the Buhari government, which also led to the arrest of his client, at the behest of the AGF.

However, Malami, through his Solicitors on Thursday, described the narrative against him and his family as “not correct, misleading, malicious, and a grossly misrepresentation of the facts leading to the arrest.”

Malami said his clarification is without prejudice to an ongoing police investigation on the matter, stating that the reasons for Shehu’s arrest borders on “extortion, criminal intimidation and attempt to obtain money by false pretence against a syndicate using GSM Numbers and email addresses.”

The former AGF noted that the aforementioned led to the ongoing investigation into the complaint by the Police

Giving more details on the matter, the solicitor said that in the course of the investigation, the police monitored a sustained communication between their clients and a syndicate alleged to have a connection with Shehu.

The solicitor wrote: “In the course of the investigation, the Police monitored the sustained communications between our clients and the syndicates, wherein the syndicate disclosed and gave Room Number 9, Summerset Continental Hotel situate at No 73 Usuma Street, Maitama, Abuja, as a place where our client would meet the syndicate’s agent for their own payments.

“On reaching the hotel and the room number, Mahdi Shehu was found therein at the scene with copies of documents that were used and sent to our client by the syndicate.

“Some of the documents that the police retrieved from Mahdi Shehu specifically lend credence to yet another petition of our client that bothers on hacking and financial improprieties affecting Hajiya Aisha Abubakar Malami.

“On account of the compromise of our client’s emails, sensitive information was unlawfully extracted from an email account, and the sum of over N19,000,000.00 was unlawfully taken out of our client’s account by the syndicate which turns out to be a syndicate of which Mahdi was coordinating via a group chat which he joined through the following phone numbers, viz: +2348033316644 and +2348096626226. He came over to the said provided address to collect $500,000 at the instance of the syndicate.”

The solicitor to the former AGF, further noted that the investigation and all the documents recovered so far are with the police for all concerned parties to verify.

“Therefore, we should all encourage, support and allow the police to do their work as it is the outcome of the investigation that can confirm who is culpable and who is innocent; at the moment, if Mahdi Shehu, has any explanation to make regarding the arrest, he should do so to the police but certainly not to the press or embark on campaign of calumny via the social media,” he said.