Malami’s media case against Igboho and Kanu

How will anyone justify Attorney-General Abubakar Malami’s last Friday press briefing on Sunday Adeyemo, aka Sunday Igboho and the self-acclaimed leader of the Igbo self-determination group, the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu? While Kanu, as we all know, had his day in court on Thursday, October 21, answering to charges bordering on treasonable felony, Igboho, on his part, is chained down in a Beninoise cell, where the Federal Government, under which Malami is the AGF, is seeking for his extradition to Nigeria. But rather than wait for the outcome of the two matters, Malami chose to, as he and other members of the Buhari hegemony, usually do, shame the country, by making pronouncements on cases that are before competent courts both in Nigeria and in Benin Republic.

The thrust here is not about the inappropriateness of Malami’s gaffe in that action. Even a law sophomore knows that it is more than contemptuous for anyone to make public comments on any case before a court, how much more the AGF, who also wears silk in the law profession. Such has been our lot under the rudderless leadership of the present crops of masters of our collective destiny as a people and as a nation. The obvious partisanship of Malami, whom I believe, has the concurrence of his master, General Buhari, to single out Igboho and Kanu, in the six-year old malady of insecurity that has bedeviled this nation since Buhari took over power in 2015, is a pointer to the acute disdain in which these functionaries of government, hold the rest parts of Nigeria outside of their  stock. Though neither Igboho nor Kanu is the model  of the freedom agitator of my dream whether  in content, delivery, execution, mien or intellect, they are, however, products of this present pathetically biased administration. Their agitations were birthed by the obvious partiality of a government, which has a penchant for feeding monstrous Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram insurgents and terrorists, mischievously labelled as bandits, with fresh breast milk, but railroads Igboho and Kanu of other nationalities, to the nearest slaughter slab!

In that embarrassing press briefing, Malami told the nation that “the Federal Government has received the report on financers of Adeniyi Sunday Adeyemo a.k.a Sunday Igboho.  The report revealed that Sunday Igboho is a Director and signatory to Adesun International Concept Limited registered on 23rd April, 2010. Adesun International Concept Limited also has Oladele Oyetunji and Aderopo Adeyemo as Directors. Sunday Igboho is linked to 43 bank accounts in 9 banks. The major financier of the fugitive and separatists was found to be a Federal Lawmaker in the National Assembly”. When our AGF emitted those words, he expected a eureka from all of us. When he went further to list how much millions of Naira  had passed through Igboho’s company, registered on 23rd April, 2010, and the cash flow in the company’s bank account, deposited between 2013 and 2020, the AGF, I take a bet, looked around to acknowledge the ‘standing ovation’ for his voyage of discovery!

What a nation! How come we have not heard those who are sponsoring Boko Haram and banditry in the North, especially in the North-West, where General Buhari comes from? If Malami knew by his fingers tips, the amount of money that had been deposited into Igboho’s bank accounts (43, he said), why did this arithmetic fail in Gumi and the bandits case? If the committee, set up by General Buhari and headed by Malami, is that expeditious in identifying the sponsors of Igboho, when are we going to have the committee that will identify the sponsors of Boko Haram? Or is our AGF saying that Sunday Igboho, as an individual, is deadlier than  Boko Haram? If Sunday Igboho is a threat to Nigeria, what do we call Boko Haram, bandits, and  the notorious herdsmen, who daily visit sorrow, tears and blood on Nigerians, with inane impunity?

In case we don’t have a full grasp of what Malami did by that press conference, here it is: His government has taken Kanu to court, yet he “overthrew” the courts, addressed a conference, took over the case, became a judge and convicted the man. And also, by lumping Sunday Igboho with Boko Haram in that press conference, Malami merely played to the gallery. As the AGF, he ought to take every and any report of “investigations” to court, not to a press conference for a media trial.

No doubt, the AGF is a very powerful figure in government. The Nigerian 1999 constitution created some monstrous institutions. One of such institutions is the office of the AGF and Minister of Justice. Duru Onyekahi, in a seven-page paper titled: “The Powers of the Attorney-General under Nigerian Law”, says: “The Attorney-General is the Chief Law Officer of a state responsible for advising the government on legal matters and representing it in litigation”. He goes further to add that the office of the Attorney-General “is a double royalty” in that sections 150 (1) and (2) and section 195 (1) and (2) of the constitution make provisions for the Attorney-General to also act as the Minister of Justice of the Federation and the state, as the case may be. This, in essence, presupposes that the intendments of the drafters of the 1999 constitution is such that they expect the occupant of the most powerful office to be fair minded, cosmopolitan in outlook, nationalistic in configuration and be able to rise above primordial sentiments, especially the ones that pander to ethnic jingoism.

To underscore the enormity of the powers the AGF wields, Onyekachi says that the Attorney-General is not just a member of the executive arm of government, “but also, he reigns supreme over all other officers of the Justice Ministry in legal matters. The Attorney-General is law unto himself (emphasis mine), hence, he is not subject to the control of anybody or authority”. The author referenced the above quotation, citing the Supreme Court judgements delivered in the cases of AG Kaduna State v. Hassan (1985) as recorded in 2NWLR (Pl.8) 438 and Ezomo v. AG Bendel State (1987) II QLRN 124 (1985) 2 SC155. The import of this is that the power of the AGF is limitless and in my own interpretation, “uncontrollable”.

If we take the above on its face value and juxtapose it with the actions of the current occupier of the office, Abubakar Malami, SAN, especially his last Friday, October 22, 2021 press conference, we can see that the AGF is a Frankenstein monster, created by the drafters of the 1999 constitution, who, never, in their widest imaginations, thought that such a office would be occupied by a Malami appointed by President Buhari.

When two people are identical in every particular material, my Yoruba background describes such as “eni bi ahun ni ri ahun he”. That simply means it takes a sly character like the tortoise to  pick up a tortoise”- especially while hunting for snails. The Oyinbo people will simply say birds of a feather flock together. That is exactly the situation with Malami, and his appointer and boss, General Buhari, who (mis)fortune has dropped on our laps as the president in this season of anomie. The duo share a common human denominator. The twosome, in the discharge of the responsibilities bestowed on them by the  offices they occupy, have demonstrated nothing but clannishness.

In concluding his discourse on “The Powers of the Attorney-General under Nigerian Law”, Onyekachi, again, citing a Court of Appeal judgement, in the matter of Attorney General of the Federation v. Ajayi (1996) NWLR (pt.448) 283, submits: “All in all, the Attorney-General is duty bound   to protect the citizens of Nigeria (Not of Northern extraction) against arbitrary executive acts….thus, his duty to prosecute criminals is not higher than his duty to protect citizens from Executive Lawlessness” (emphasis, again, mine). To do or act otherwise is to unabashedly subvert the letters of the constitution. I rise!

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