The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, has revealed why he wrote President
Muhammadu Buhari a letter advising him to order the termination of the charges instituted against the immediate-past AGF, Mohammed Adoke, SAN, and others, in respect of Malabu oil scam.
Malami told Punch that he advised Buhari to withdraw the charges because he had evaluated the case and realised that the investigations which led to the filing the charges against Adoke and others were weak and could not earn any conviction.
Asked why he chose to write the President instead of exercising his constitutional power of discontinuing the criminal trials if he strongly believed the charges instituted by the EFCC were weak.
Malami said discontinuance of trials was not the major consideration of his letter to Buhari.
According to him, his letter was more concerned about how Nigeria could derive the greatest benefits from the controversial Oil Processing Licence 245 covering highly lucrative oil field which had not been explored for years due to court cases.
He stated, “The letter was written within the context of the available investigation report on the basis of which the charges were filed which I find inadequate to earn a conviction.
“It also factored the Federal Government’s policy of attracting foreign investment coupled with the fact that an asset that could have enhanced the revenue of the government is left unexploited on account of protracted litigation.
“The idea behind the letter is to present options available to government in relation to the issue inclusive of either improving on the inadequacies of the investigation or taking advantage of available investment attraction policy windows thereby improving on revenue generation of the government through negotiating the resumption of production in the oil field.”
Malami had, in his letter dated September 27, 2017, said the criminal cases filed by the EFCC against Adoke and others lacked sufficient evidence to prove the allegations of fraud and money laundering contained therein. http://dailypost.ng/2018/02/19/malami-asks-buhari-stop-diezani-adokes-trial-give-reasons/
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