Malami denies alleged refusal to recover N300bn loot

Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami

 The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, has denied the claim by the Chief Executive Officer of Panic Alert Security Systems, Mr. George Uboh, that he (AGF) had uncovered over N300bn looted from the Federal Government and kept in secret accounts.

Malami stated this in his response to the petition sent to President Muhammadu Buhari by Uboh, alleging, among others, that the minister failed to recover N300bn, which, he claimed, to have traced within 27 days of being engaged by the AGF.
The petitioner also alleged that the minister had an unholy alliance with the “banking sector mafia” not to cooperate with PASS in the task of tracing and recovering the loot.

He also accused Malami of blocking the recovery of the over N1tn proceeds of fraud and corruption recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission but allegedly diverted and kept in secret accounts by the anti-corruption agency.

But Malami, in his response, with reference number, HAGF/SH/2016/Vol. 1/20, sent to the President through the Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, said instead of tracing, recovering and remitting the hidden loot as stated in the terms of engagement, Uboh was “merely on a voyage of information and window-shopping”.

He said he revoked the letter of engagement, dated February 9, 2016, through a letter dated March 24, 2016, when he discovered that Uboh had unilaterally extended the scope of the engagement.

He said he found out that beyond the 13 banks, which he limited Uboh’s engagement to, the PASS boss “actually wrote several banks, private individuals, corporate entities (national and multinationals), government agencies and virtually all ministries of the Federal Government.

He said the petitioner solicited “data, information, official records, remittances (funds and stocks) and records of the whereabouts of all forfeited assets not yet disposed by some of the FGN agencies, amongst other things”.

According to the minister, among those written by Uboh aside the 13 banks he was engaged for were all ministers, Managing Directors of 25 Money Deposit Banks in Nigeria; Chairman, Independent Corrupt Practices and other offences Commission; Inspector-General of the Police; Acting MD, Niger Delta Development Commission; MD, Petroleum Products Marketing Company; MD, Nigerian Ports Authority, and the Acting Chairman of the EFCC.

Others, he added, included the immediate Past Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Dikko Inde; the immediate past AGF and Minister of Justice, Mr. Bello Adoke; a former Minister of State for Finance/Minister of Finance, Mrs Nenadi Usman; and the immediate past Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio, among over 30 others.

Malami stated, “In a manner that clearly demonstrated that PASS was merely on a voyage of information and window–shopping, PASS, upon receipt of the letters hereinabove mentioned, went to town and unilaterally expanded the scope of its brief far beyond the 13 banks covered by his brief and embarked on subtle threats to all Nigerian banks, some private individuals and entities solely to shop for data and information to execute the brief contrary to the representations made to me.

“It’s only a defence for the ultra vires were the fraudulent, baseless, unsubstantiated and illogical inferences that my letter of introduction dated February 17, 2016 has endlessly expanded/enlarged the scope of its instructions while in actual sense, the said letter was expressly issued ‘pursuant to a February 9, 2016’s letter of engagement’ earlier given to PASS.”

Malami denied having any “unholy alliance” with some banks to frustrate the recovery of the looted funds.

“I must state that the above allegations are untrue, incorrect, false, a figment of the imagination of the author and a smear campaign by Dr. Uboh to tarnish my name,” he said.

He added that after the disengagement, Uboh cooked up letters to give the impression that he had traced the money and brought it to the attention of the AGF office.