Abubakar Malami, Nigeria’s Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) has said that he was very much aware of the raid carried out on suspected corrupt judges and that he gave his assent to the action.
Malami who appeared before House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee chaired by Garba Datti on Tuesday affirmed that the DSS got his approval to raid the judges arrested on October 7th and 8th.
Malami claimed to have received several petitions against the judicial officers which prompted him to give the DSS the go ahead with the raid they carried out on the judges.
The DSS had recently raided the residences of some judges, effecting arrests and subsequent prosecution of the judges.
The action of the secret police had drawn a lot of criticism, with the EFCC stating that the DSS had no right to have raided or arrested the judicial officers they raided.
EFCC claimed that the action of the DSS is an encroachment into its functions, a situation among others that prompted the House of Reps to investigate the matter, by setting up an Ad-hoc committee to examine the rationale behind the action and if the DSS had the legal right to have arrested the judges.
Malami however, asserted that “When we are talking about constitutional obligations, it goes without saying that all state instruments, Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDA, are under obligation, inclusive of the legislature and the judiciary, to take steps that will abolish corrupt practices.
“It is in respect of that obligation that whatever issue arises from the search and arrest of the judicial officers were carried out.
“The state was in receipt of multiple petitions of corrupt practices by the judicial officers and there was further apprehension that if immediate steps were not taken, the possibility of dissipating existing evidence that was believed to have been kept within their respective domain will eventually be tampered with.
“Arising from the responsibility created and established by Section 15 of the constitution, the state had to act.
“But the question of which agency has the responsibility of executing it, my response to that derives from the fact that multiple petitions were written to Office of the AGF, DSS, EFCC and a lot of other agencies of government and to my mind, I have the discretion to weigh the situation and decide which agency, against the background of the petition, will act for the purpose of ensuring that the obligation of the provisions of Section 15 (5) of the constitution are carried out.
“So whatever evolved from the search and arrest of the judicial officers revolved around the need to comply with the responsibility and obligation vested on them by provisions of the constitution and the need to ensure that the investigation is not in any way tampered with negatively.
“These were the circumstances that led to the operation. It was a clear exercise of the constitutional mandate in respect of what is expected of the state to abolish corrupt practices”.
He further stated that he wrote letters to the NJC to act upon the petitions against the judicial officers but there was no action or response from them which led the DSS to act by arresting the judges.
He said, “When we got the petitions, I had cause to personally write to the NJC requesting that they take administrative steps to investigate the allegations contained in the petitions.
“A response was made to my office that NJC can only act unless the petitions were accompanied by affidavits but I felt there was no reason the petitions cannot be looked on their own merit by placing sanctions on the AGF while it was a constitutional obligation.
“Incidentally, multiple petitions were also written to DSS and I requested that they equally write to NJC to look into the petitions but it was the same response DSS got from NJC that without a supporting affidavit, the petitions can’t be looked into.
“So we have a situation where there’s reasonable ground for suspicion for the commission of corruption and we have a body saddled with the primary, administrative responsibility of looking at such things first but seems not to be cooperating in that respect.
“Meanwhile, when the issue of commission of corrupt practice is established, the Executive has the responsibility of investigation without recourse to the judiciary. That is how the idea of taking the advantage of Section 15 (5) arose.
“I asked EFCC and DSS and another agency to investigate because they were in receipt of several petitions on the same subject and I was informed by the DSS before the search and arrest and I did not object.
“The DSS presented a formal report to me before and after effecting the search and arrest, they informed me that the operation will be done at any hour without restriction.
“I had no objection that the operation would be carried out at night because I have taken the time to go through the administration of Criminal Justice Act and I was convinced that this operation can be conducted at any hour, any moment without restriction.
“I don’t have to inform the Inspector General of Police (IGP) or Commissioner of Police in the State about the DSS operation because they were also under the same constitutional obligation to act and one of the agencies had investigated, came up with a report and I was convinced.
“If any other agency came up with cogent reason for a search and arrest I will equally give them the permission and they are not under any obligation to revert back to me when searches are to be carried out, they are independent and statutory mandate to act without recourse to me but only after the search and arrest they can make a report in order to aid further action on the matter.
“I was happy with the DSS operation simply because those allegations were established arising from the result of the searches and investigations that were carried out”, Malami said.
By Joseph Emmanuel…
By Joseph Emmanuel…
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