The house of representatives says they have uncovered the
illegal payment of N2 billion made by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to
Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF), for the prosecution
of terror suspects.
At its sitting on Tuesday, the house ad hoc committee
probing the status of recovered loot queried Malami on the funds which they
said they never approved as a budgetary allocation.
The lawmakers also tackled the minister of justice for
allegedly requesting payment of approved solicitors’ fees from the recovered
loot.
Adejoro Adeogun, chairman of the committee, said: “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.
“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)’.
Adeogun said 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.”
The AGF, 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.
‘DISCREPANCIES’ IN RECOVERED ASSETS
The panel also raised the alarm over the discrepancies in
the records of recovered assets presented by various government agencies.
According to Adeogun, “the EFCC said they handed over this
number of vessels to your office, the navy gives a different number and you
have a different number — the same items, different inventories, different
figures.”
Malami responded that he is “not in a position to confirm
the discrepancies with the number of assets” and asked the lawmakers to verify
so through their oversight roles.
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