Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN on Saturday denied his involvement in the raid by security operatives on the house of Supreme Court Justice, Mary Peter-Odili, on Friday evening.
Malami in a statement by his media aide, Dr Umar Gwandu, said he “was not in any way connected with the fabrications and concocted lies linking him to the ensued imbroglio relating to news stories about the residence of a Justice of the Supreme Court; Justice Mary Odili”.
He said the clarification to debunk the mischievous publication became imperative in view of the media hype and the dimension the story is taking.
“It is important to set the record straight that as the Chief Law Officer of the Federation, Malami will not stoop too low to be associated with an apparent in-elegant and nasty court process on the strength of which the purported search warrant was procured”, the statement read.
According to Gwandu, the media reports on the issue depict too untidy process that could never emanate from the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.
“The general public need to know that there was nothing called Joint Panel Recovery Under the Ministry of Justice in the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, and by extension the entire Federal Ministry of Justice.
“What we have is Assets Recovery and Management Unit, the mandate of which does not include stings operations”, he said.
Gwandu maintained that numerous incongruities in the documents being circulated in relation to the incident revealed traces of criminal actions with particular regards to: The name as contained on the purported letter headed paper “Ghost’s Account For Local Whistle Blowers & Assets Tax Recovery Panel.
“The ambiguous reference to Ministry of Justice without clarifying as to whether it is Federal or State Ministry and of which State,
” The claimed office address which as revealed by the letter headed paper is not the address of the Federal Ministry of Justice,
“Email address used on the letter
All these deductions would have assisted a discerning mind to arrive at a reasonable conclusion of criminal undertones associated with the court process on the basis of which the purported search warrant was procured.
The statement added that the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice had since reached out to the relevant authorities for an intensified wider investigation on the matter for necessary actions leading to the prosecution of anyone involved in the matter in view of the fact that the only names on record from the process filed in court are a purported police officer who claimed to be “O/C Assets Recovery Team” and one Aliyu Umar a deponent in the affidavit.
“The claim of the chief magistrate as reported by a section of the media to the effect that he was being misled by office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice into the issuance of the search warrant is equally forwarded to the relevant investigation agencies to ascertain veracity or otherwise of the purported association of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice and which officer if any in the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice is associated with such claimed misrepresentation”, he said.
