Politics
Nigerian govt denies hand in raid on Justice Odili’s home, orders probe
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) has distanced himself from the reported raid of the residence of a Justice of the Supreme Court, Mary Odili, by security operatives, and has ordered a probe into the circumstances surrounding the incident.
In a statement on Saturday by his Special Assistant, Media and Public Relations, Dr Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, the AGF said the clarification became necessary following the dimension the story had taken in the media.
He said: “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 media reports on the issue depict a too untidy process that could never emanate from the Office of the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.”
He stressed the need for the general public 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, as highlighted by some reports.
According to the statement, Malami said what the ministry has, is the Inter-ministerial Committee on Assets Recovery, and its mandate does not include stings operations.
The statement read, “The Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice has 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 since 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 that he was being misled by the 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 investigative agencies to ascertain the 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.”
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