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Malami playing ignoble role, set to nail Igboho at all costs –Afenifrere

David Adenekan
David Adenekan
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The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, has been playing an ignoble role in the Muhammadu Buhari’s government, the pan Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has declared on Saturday.

This is as it asserted that federal government was out to nail Chief Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, at all costs by attempting to label him as a terrorist.

According to the group, the statement by Malami, linking Igboho to terrorism “was the height of an attempt to nail Adeyemo at all costs even without justification”.

The organisation, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, said the attitude of Malami on matters of rights of Nigerians and the need to use the law to edify the society had always called to question his capacity to hold the exalted office as the first law officer of the country.

According to the statement, one of the individuals who will feature prominently whenever the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari is being appraised is Malami because of what he did – and makes the government he serves to do – while in that office.

He maintained that his prominence would not be for exemplary positive contributions to the nation and to humanity but for the unprecedented damage he caused the administration he served to commit.

He said, “Signs for this ignoble record for Malami have been manifesting from his first year in office. But a confirmation of this came out through the press conference he held in Abuja on Friday, October 22, 2021 in which he tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to liken Mr. Sunday Adeyemo, a.k.a. Sunday Igboho, to Boko Haram terrorists.  His way of doing this was the revelation that there were financial transaction between a business firm, Adesun International Concept linked to Sunday Igboho and Abbal Bako & Sons linked to one Abdullahi Umar.

According to Malami, “Abdullahi Umar Usman is by way of financial transaction connected to Surajo Abubakar Muhammad Usman who was sentenced to a life imprisonment in UAE on charges of financing terrorism [Boko Haram])”. Malami asserted that the financial deal were “transaction outflows” between 2013 and 2021. Meaning that it was the company linked to Igboho that paid Abbal Bako and not the other way round.”

Ajayi insisted that the simple understanding of ‘sponsorship’ is that the sponsor would pay the one being sponsored, noting that in the  case of Igboho as claimed by Malami it was the supposed sponsored who paid the supposed sponsor which he said happened long before Igboho began his activities first as a human rights campaigner and later as a Yoruba nation agitator.

The statement read in part: “To worsen matters for Malami, he could not mention any specific terrorism act carried out by Igboho especially in regard to the financial transactions he was so excited to roll out. But then, Malami’s ‘war’ against self-determination agitators ought not to come to us as a surprise. For, he gave a hint of this when he was being screened by the Senate for his ministerial appointment. He had told the Senate that “My major task and intention are to ensure that our laws relating to treason and treasonable felony are indeed effectively brought to bear to ensure that this nation of ours remains one and the same.”

According to Ajayi, as at that time, the scale of injustice and impunity had not been as heavy as it had been, though Afenifere and others were even by then talking about restructuring, stating that for Malami to even as at the time of his ministerial screening, talk about laws on ‘treason and treasonable felony’ meant that he came to the office with a mission to quell any attempt by Nigerians to call for good governance.

The Afenifere spokesman said if a fraction of the energy being put into hounding rights agitators such as Nnamdi Kanu, Omoyele Sowore, Sunday Adeyemo and others had been channeled into fighting insecurity and corruption, Nigeria would not be in the socio-economic and political doldrums it had been at the moment.

“It is a big pity that this government seems to be more interested in quelling agitations for self-determination rather than confronting insecurity and economic tragedy that are fast sinking the country into an undeserved dungeon,” he stated.

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