Disciplinary Panel Strikes Out Petition Against Abubakar Malami

A petition against the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, has been struck out by the Legal Practitioner’s Privileges Committee (LPPC) on Thursday.

The LPPC, which is the statutory body in charge of conferring or withdrawing the award of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) from senior lawyers in the country, struck out the petition for lacking diligent prosecution.

The petition had been filed by one Mr Obi Johnson of Interstellar Communications Ltd who demanded disciplinary action against Malami for allegedly not doing enough to ensure the payment of proceeds the company obtained from a judgement at the Supreme Court.

Malami had in his defence filed against the petition claimed the petitioner had been paid N3bn as a result of his (the ex-AGF’s) intervention in the case.

It was gathered that the petitioner failed to send either a lawyer or an official of the company as representative at the proceedings yesterday, hence the dismissal of the petition. Whereas Malami attended the proceedings and was also represented by his lawyers during the proceedings.

Two petitions had been filed against the former Justice Minister, one of which was written by the family of Mr Dasuki.

Dasuki’s family had filed a petition against the former AGF over the continued detention of the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtred).

Yesterday’s dismissal of Obi’s petition now brings the number of petitions against Malami before the LPPC to one.

The disciplinary committee will hear the petition by the Dasukis today, Friday.

The former NSA’s family are requesting the LPPC to take disciplinary action against Malami for allegedly endorsing the continued detention of Dasuki who has been in custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) for some time over alleged misuse of a $2 billion arms money.