NOBODY should allow Alhaji Abubakar Malami, Honourable Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation give us hypertension. He, in the full splendour of his office, spectacularly fails to know how important he is to the sustenance of the flagging republic.
As his doubts grow, Malami pulls off unspeakable stunts that belittle his office and get him a few headlines for a few days. He reclines for his next moment of setting Nigerians against themselves.
Were Malami not the Chief Law Officer of the Federation, he would have long been in jail for ceaseless efforts to tear apart the unity President Muhammadu Buhari preaches as if it is the air Nigerians breathe. He does his things openly.
President Buhari was once thought to have Nnamdi Kanu as his only agenda. Malami has overtaken him with a reckless drive that lunges beyond the law. He is not bothered.
The more lawless Malami is, the better he thinks he is serving the republic. It is obvious Buhari is impressed. We may later be told Buhari was not aware there was an Attorney-General, or one named Malami, whose justice comprises sectional and sensational storms searing at fabrics that seal the sagging strands of Nigeria’s togetherness.
Malami is at his best when exploding bombs in his own bunker. He plays above the laws, he burdens the law and he has no cares about consequences.
Read Also: Malami blames IPOB/ESN for #EndSARS attacks, looting of Oba’s palace, others
What makes a Senior Advocate of Nigeria twist facts so brazenly? Why would Malami convict suspects outside the court? Why did he tell blatant lies about IPOB desecrating the palace of the Oba of Lagos when none of the suspects charged for the #EndSARS-induced incident is an IPOB member?
Sunday Igboho was the spice Malami required to show how badly Southern Nigeria was opposed to the government. Igboho, who is against Fulani herdsmen’s destruction of farms and killing as they please, is sponsored by the people he is fighting, said Malami.
Nnamdi and Igboho have cases in court. Malami could have amended the charges against them. But he preferred his own court for his own case and he was judge. Certainly, the issues were not about the law.
He had a long list of allegations against Nnamdi just a day after the judge heard the Federal Government’s case against Nnamdi. Malami found him guilty on all counts though none of the issues he raised were in court.
Give Malami credit for extending the frontiers of the law. How would his action be sub judice? The charges his commission adjudicated on were not before any court unless we elevate his commission to a special court.
Our laws have proven inadequate for the powers Malami likes to wield without care. He would do more.
If Malami aware of the importance of his office, he would not indulge in wanton abhorrence of law and order. The law annoys him. He would rather have a wide, wild, unlawful even, space to lay out the finer points of his superior logic over law and order.
Our Constitution establishes courts. Our Attorney-General over-rules them with a commission that investigated and passed judgement on suspects whose matters were before courts. The case before the courts, the report of the commission, are all at the instance of Malami, Nigeria’s greatest Attorney-General, of all times.
He is bold, brave, brash until he is nudged to awareness that bandits have overrun many parts of Nigeria, especially Malami’s native Kebbi State. He becomes inarticulate, reasoned, and picks his words carefully.
Malami is in a small group that speaks for bandits who oscillate between cattle rustling and these minor crimes – gunning down military aircraft, invading NDA, snatching anti-aircraft weapons from the military, killing, rape, arson, kidnapping for ransom, illegal mining, illegal collection of taxes, vandalising farms – in awesome displays of their love for Nigerian unity.
Unlike Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Honourable Minister of Information echoes his sentiments raucously; Malami support is never mentioning the overwhelming dominance of lawless elements in the North. The trouble makers in the North are bandits not terrorists. They do not have flags (doubtful assertion) and no matter whatever they do, they have never preached against our unity, Lai Mohammed says, also a lawyer. He expects us to applaud.
Sacking Malami is not a solution. Who would sack him? President Buhari? Not a chance. Another Attorney-General would act in line with these international best practices – a mantra of the much-love, most popular Buhari administration.
Malami is a phase. We should worry more about the dangers of his fazed inclinations. He is setting dangerous precedents in lawless. He must be happy at his choices which bear the imprimatur of the President.
How does the angst he creates against Kanu and his followers, Igboho and his supporters end insecurity in Nigeria? Does Malami ever worry about terrorism in the North?
Malami feels we under-rate how great he is in law. Who discusses law with the Almighty Attorney-General of the Federation?
With all his powers and postures, is he also angry that the suspected separatists of the South are not wrecking enough havoc like the bandits of the North? If he gets the South East and South West at each other’s throats, there would be enough demands for laws, possibly including law of necessity, to maintain the non-negotiable unity of Nigeria.
Malami is too smart to waste his energies on name-calling. His punches are still concealed.
FINALLY…
DARKNESS, or poor electricity supply, would be around for a long time. Those who manage billions of Naira governments and their agencies annually budget for diesel, generators, and spares are not tired.
GOVERNORSHIP election in Anambra State will go on well not because of the thousands of security person deployed to the State, but the decision of politicians to see through a transition so that business would continue as usual.
WHICH one is easier, displaying Deziani Allison-Maduekwe’s alleged acquisitions or charging her to court? Government has spent over six years on the matter. It will still be on it by 2023.
.Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues
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