I have not been briefed on Adoke’s return —Malami

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) said on Thursday he has not been notified of the return of his predecessor, Mohammed Adoke, to Nigeria from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where he had been since November 11.

The AGF, who spoke to judiciary correspondents at the Federal Ministry of Justice headquarters in Abuja, said he was yet to receive a formal briefing on the ex-minister’s arrival to the country.

He said: “I think there are multiple judicial cases pending before the judiciary and against the background of subsisting principle of the law, I wouldn’t want to comment one way or the other in that respect or direction because I cannot be talking in preemptive sense or preempting the judicial position as it relates to the matter.

READ ALSO: Ex-Justice Minister Adoke lands Abuja, to be picked up by EFCC

“I am equally not in a position to confirm the statement relating to the arrival of the former Attorney General in Nigeria as I have not been officially briefed in that respect. Until I am formally briefed I am not in a position to comment on it, one way or the other.”

Adoke, who had been on self-exile since 2015, was arrested in November by Interpol in Dubai over alleged complicity in the Oil Prospecting License (OPL) 245 scam where he was indicted alongside 10 other entities including Shell Petroleum Development Company and Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC).

He boarded a flight to Nigeria shortly after he was released from the Interpol custody in Dubai and arrived the country at exactly 3:45 p.m. on Thursday.

The former minister was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) operatives on arrival and is currently being questioned on the OPL 245 scam and other related corruption cases.

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