The Maladies of Malami

Eddy Odivwri

Mr Abubakar Malami is the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. He is a 54-year Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). Until 2015, when he got appointed into the President Muhammadu Buhari cabinet, not much was known or heard of the Birnin-Kebbi born lawyer. Many believe he is one of the top beneficiaries of the Buhari administration as he was not a visible member of the Pre-2015 Buhari presidential efforts and forays, even though he had served as legal adviser to the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

Yet, he landed a top job: the foremost law officer of the country. But in almost all his outings, Malami ‘s utterances have not only been disastrous but highly misleading, and this has inadvertently put a query on his background and his understanding of basic justice.

He is a graduate of Usman Dan Fodiyo University, and later went to University of Maiduguri for a Masters degree in Public Administration. A local breed, so to say!

Last Tuesday, Malami was seen at the parliament, struggling to extricate himself from what was appearing like an indictment for his office illegally spending a whopping N2 billion from recovered loot, allegedly to pay lawyers who were prosecuting terrorist suspects. His responses to the questions were as clumsy as they were confusing.

Last week, Malami obnoxiously seized the headlines when he compared the ban on Open Grazing by all Southern Nigerian governors to banning all spare parts sellers in the north. It was an inverted innuendo on the Igbos, whose folks are essentially the dealers on spare parts sales. It was an utterance in bad faith. Many Nigerians were shocked that a supposed Minister of Justice, one schooled in the theories of equity and jurisprudence of justice did not know the difference between open grazing and spare parts trade. Was he mentally daft not to know or was he just being politically mischievous? Either way, it is despicable, not only for his exalted office, but for the ethos in the pursuit of national unity.

Here are herdsmen—be they Fulani or whatever, whose name now collocate with rape, kidnappings, maiming and killings, being compared to genuine entrepreneurs deeply involved in the business of selling and buying, without hurt or threat to anybody. Not even a Grade 3 pupil will have the idleness of brain to slate the two businesses on the same page.

Beside the huge threat to the security of lives and property across the length and breath of the country, the cattle herders, do not pay tax. The spare parts sellers do. Many of the former are involved in killing of innocent lives, the latter don’t. While the former have a running battle with farmers across the land, the latter do not. While the herders, in pursuit of their endeavours encroach on and destroy the businesses of others, the latter do not. Does Malami need to go back to school to know these? How can a man lacking in such basic understanding be presiding over the justice system of over 200 million people? People like Malami are the raison d’etre of our under development as a people.

Before this obnoxious comparison, Malami had trended when he announced that the so-called Ibori loot of 4.2 million British pounds recovered from the United Kingdom, will be used to execute federal projects: Lagos-Ibadan road, 2nd Niger bridge and Abuja-Kaduna road, arguing mendaciously, that the money so recovered belongs to the federal government and not Delta State from where the money was stolen. How warped! A state governor stole the funds from his state’s coffers, sent same abroad. He got caught and the money so stolen is recovered. Then a minister of Justice suddenly argues that the said money belongs to the federal government.

But Malami won’t say that Ibori ever operated or had access to the federal till. Rather than say the cost of recovering the fund should be paid into the federation account, Malami says the whole money belongs to the federal government. What is worse, not even one of the said projects on which the money was to be expended, was located in Delta State. Not even a Minister of Injustice (if any) can do worse. But as a reprieve, the Accountant General of the Federation had declared last Tuesday that the recovered Ibori loot has been sent to Delta State government, even though the latter had denied receiving the money as at last Wednesday.

Malami obviously likes power. He tried to contest for Kebbi state governorship, but lost to the incumbent Gov Bagudu in the primaries. He loves to be atop. He likes to control. It is his desperation to control every lever of power that got him clashing with the former EFCC acting Chairman, Ibrahim Magu. He wanted to subsume the EFCC and literally be in charge, determining those to be prosecuted and those to be let off. But Magu did not accept. Malami used the appurtenances of his office to pull down Magu in a rather weird and queer

manner. Imagine the mountain of allegation leveled against Magu. Till today, nothing has been established against Magu, otherwise his prosecution would have been running. Does the non-prosecution of Magu not mean that he was merely persecuted by a man who should be a judicial avante garde? Why have they refused to make open the findings of the Ayo Salami panel which probed Magu’s alleged misdemeanours? Latter day events have revealed that Malami’s exploits were all aimed at installing his kinsman, scion and lackey, Abdulrasheed Bawa, as the EFCC chairman, even as he (Malami) still has his eyes on the Kebbi governorship seat. Rather than dispense equity, the young man has been dishing out iniquity in all dimensions.

Last December, peeved by the spate of killings and general air of insecurity in the country, the lawmakers in the House of Representatives, had resolved to invite President Muhammadu Buhari to come address them on the issue of security or the lack of it in the country. The leaders of the lower house had respectfully gone to invite Mr President, who in turn gave his word to come to parliament. While everybody awaited the date, Malami, 24 hours to the agreed date, released some statement, again, arguing casuistically, that Mr President cannot and would not appear before parliamentarians. That was how the meeting was aborted. The consequences are that the security situation only worsened and became far more dire.

This same Malami it was, who was so quick to declare the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) a terrorist organization, yet refused to declare Miyetti Allah or Boko Haram or even the bandits as terrorists, just because the latter groups are largely his Fulani folksmen, while the former are Igbos.

The maladies of Malami are many. His ilk are a danger to the continuous existence of a united country. He plays politics with everything. He even suffers judicial jaundice. He is not deserving of the high office he occupies.

Imagine a President Yahaya Bello!

Eddy Odivwri

Are you expectant of one of the impending wonders of the land?

Impending wonders? What could that be? Is President Buhari resigning and handing over to Professor Yemi Osinbajo?

Far from it!

Then what can it be?

Do you know that we could end up with a new kid on the bloc as our President come 2023?

New kid? In this Nigeria? You are better wake up from your dream. It won’t happen!

Calm down! It is never over until it is over. Did you not hear that lots of Nigerians have been begging and urging Governor Yahaya Bello (GYB) to get into the presidential race in 2023? And do you know that the call has assumed the tempo of a movement now, with the clamour for GYB increasing by the day and spreading like the gospel of salvation?

Gospel of salvation indeed! Where is that spread? Tell me! Who is spreading it?

It appears like you have not been following the trends in the social media. Did you not hear or read of the South West women, led by one Bolanle Ade-Idowu clamouring for GYB to become the president in 2023? Did you not read or hear of a youth group urging GYB to join the presidential race? Did you not read or hear of …

(raising the full palm like a traffic warden ) Enough! I did not hear or read anything. Don’t you try to initiate me into your club of gullibility. You mean you don’t know that some of those so-called clamour meetings are arranged and sponsored? Did you not hear that a Television house conducted a research involving 5000 Nigerians and only six per cent of the respondents said they wanted GYB as President? What did that tell you?

These ones I am referring to are voluntary and impulsive, not sponsored. They have seen and identified the onyx in the young man called Yahaya Bello and believe that he could be a solution to the myriad of problems we have in this country. They are self-energised, self-motivated and self-inspired.

Wonders will really never end! What did these so-called self-motivated persons see in Yahaya Bello to demand for his becoming our President? Are we a joke? Yahaya Bello as President? Has he been able to manage the 3.3 million people in Kogi State, as to now handover the fate, fortune and complexities of over 200 million people to him? Are you so brain-damaged?

All the faculties of my brain are working full blast. You need to check out the credentials of this young man: he is young and energetic. At 45, he is full of energy and ideas. He is certainly not part of the historic rot that has ruined the foundation of this country. He’s shown sufficient capacity to turn around the captivity of Zion, if you know what I mean.

Do you realise that since five years ago, he’s been in the vanguard of re-ordering the fortunes of his state? Do you remember he carried out the first-ever bio-data verification of the workforce in Kogi State and he was able to remove 18,211 ghost workers off the payroll of the state? That he brought down the monthly wage bill from N5.8 billion to N4.6 billion, per month at the time? Imagine all that he helped the state to save and plough into development.

Do you know that he is one of the most women-friendly governors in Nigeria? With an ordered female vice chairman in all the 21 Local Government Areas in the state, plus having a female ADC and a female Secretary to State Government (SSG), GYB has scored a huge high in gender balancing in government, as recommended by the United Nations?

I don’t think that is a governance virtue. I believe the governor just likes women. That is why he’s flocking his government with women all over. Like late Mumammar Ghaddafi, he loves women taking care of his safety.

Do you know that GYB is also one of the middle belt governors who has been able to stave off the insecurity pandemic from his state. You think it is mere happenstance? Look, this young man has got strategy and brain. And if he can do it at a micro level, he can do it on a larger scale. I think we can have a GYB transform to PYB—President Yahaya Bello. That way a PMB can hand over to PYB!.

I still think you are dreaming. This is the same Yahaya Bello who not only spent state resources buying Limousine cars for himself and his traditional ruler, but also refused to allow NCDC officials to enter Kogi State, claiming that there is nothing like Corona Virus!

He was arguing like a native illiterate, opposing science with rustic and primordial arguments. How can a leader argue that way? Didn’t you see all his fellow governors disowned him?

But can’t you see that in the entire federation, Kogi State has the least cases of Corona Virus infection ?

That is because he would not allow the people to be tested whether they have it or not? And that is a problem for a supposed leader. How can he not listen to contrary opinions? How can he not absorb criticisms, be they constructive or obstructive? He is not tolerant. He believes that every contrary voice must be silenced, anyhow. Societies don’t grow and develop that way.

Look, nobody is perfect. Don’t forget he is a youth. There are tendencies to have youthful exuberance interfere with his judgements. But enough to say we learn everyday. I believe that the capacity to govern and raise the bar of good life for the generality of the people should be considered. We should focus on the bright side of the dark sides and push the ship of state to a safe and comfortable habour.

It is the alchemy of that youthfulness that nearly turned him to an enfant terrible, trying to harass and intimidate anybody not on his side of the divide. That cannot work in this 21st century. If he wants to become President of Nigeria, he must go through the Democracy Academy thoroughly, wean himself of violence and dictatorial tendencies and then come back with piety for a public endorsement.