How AGF Malami recieved N2bn illegally from recovered loot, Reps panel

By our reporter| The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) illegally paid N2 billion to Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF), from recovered loot, a house of representative panel said on Tuesday.

The house ad hoc committee probing the status of recovered loot during its sitting queried the AGF on the funds which they said they never approved as a budgetary allocation.

The lawmakers who cited a letter from the CBN directing the release of the funds following a request made for the money to be used to prosecute terror suspects, also grilled Malami for allegedly requesting payment of approved solicitors’ fees from the recovered loot.

“The honourable attorney general of the federation is requesting payment of approved solicitors’ fees. You see, you are asking for solicitors’ fees from recovered funds’ accounts. I don’t think it is proper; that is what we are talking about, Adejoro Adeogun, chairman of the committee said.

“The question I want to ask regards to the payment of N2 billion which you received for the prosecution of terrorism suspects; was it supposed to come from that [recovered funds] account or should it have been part of the budgetary spending? Is it that when you exhaust your budget, you ask these people to send you some money?”

But Malami denied making specific requests from the recovered loot, although he did not deny receiving the said N2 billion from the CBN.

“Where the money comes from is a function of the federal ministry of finance and I am not making specific requests out of the recovered assets,” he said.

The lawmakers then presented a letter from the central bank titled, ‘Request for approval to effect critical payments in respect of federal ministry of justice for the recovered (funds)’.

According to Adeogun, the letter shows “the attorney-general knows that this is coming from the recovered funds; which means that the attorney-general knows that he is making a request that is against the law”.

Malami, however, insisted that the request did not originate from his office.

“There is nothing indicating a previous correspondence from the office of attorney-general nor is there anything in the opening paragraph making reference to a letter from the office of attorney-general,” he said.