The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating the arrest of judicial officers, yesterday, threatened to issue a warrant of arrest against the Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, if he failed to appear before the committee on November 29, 2016. The Garba Datti-led committee has also frowned on alleged continuous non-appearance of the AGF to answer or clarify issues whenever invited by committees of the House, saying such action was disturbing.
The AGF, Vanguard learned, was written by the committee to send a memorandum and also appear in person to answer questions or give clarifications on the roles played by his office in the arrest of some Federal High Court Judges by the DSS, but he neither sent a memorandum nor appeared before the committee to honour the invitation.
Expressing frustration over the non-appearance of the AGF, Datti, issued the threat notice on the second day of the investigative public hearing after a closed door session with the DG of DSS and open hearing with representatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
He said: “The only area we are having problem with is the AGF who is the chief law officer.
We sent letters to him, but there was no answer and no memorandum from him. Before the public hearing, we had summoned him, even today (Thursday), he did not appear or send any representation. “This Committee is disturbed by the non- appearance of the AGF. We have given him the opportunity to appear on November 29, failure of which this Committee will invoke all the relevant laws that give us power for arrest.”
Recall that the Ad-hoc Committee was mandated to “investigate all cases of invasion of property and arrest of persons for reasons outside the general duties of the State Security Services as prescribed by the National Securities Act, since 29th May, 2015.” Speaking earlier, Chairman, Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission, ICPC, Nta Ekpo Nta, said that the operatives of the DSS, were empowered by SSS Instrument No. 1 of 1999, similar powers of arrest vested on officers of the Nigerian Police Force.
According to him, “Section 3(1) of the SSS instrument I of 1999 provides that: “For the purpose of facilitating the discharge of its functions under these instrument, personnel of the State Security Services are hereby conferred with the powers of Superior Police officer in respect of searches and arrest.” “Likewise, section 3 (2b) of the SSS Instrument I of 1999 provides that in the execution of its functions set out in the Instrument, the SSS shall have power to “impound and keep in its custody the passports or any other property of persons or organizations under investigation if considered appropriate by the Director-General.” However, the DG of the DSS, Lawal Daura, declined to talk to the press after the closed door session with the committee but only managed to say, “it went well” when pressured by journalists to commenting on the outcome of the meeting.
Abubakar Malami But the EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, represented by Johnson Ojogbana, an Assistant Director from the prosecution unit of the commission explained that the Commission which was vested with wide powers, can initiate investigation of individual, organisation or any judges including public or political office holders.
He stated that the Commission has statutory powers to investigate and prosecute all financial and economic crimes and any form of fraud, narcotic drug and trafficking, money laundering, embezzlement, bribery, looting and any form of corrupt malpractices.
Other areas of jurisdiction of the commission he stated include illegal arms deal, smuggling, human trafficking, child labour, illegal oil bunkering and illegal mining, tax evasion, foreign exchange malpractices, including counterfeiting of currency, theft of intellectual properties and piracy, open !market abuse, dumping of toxic waste and prohibited goods. He said, “What we did was to state the powers of the EFCC and where we derived our powers from over the years and to add, that EFCC has the mandate to investigate and prosecute all economic and financial crimes in the last 13 years and we have lived up to expectations.”
But speaking on his own capacity, the EFCC representative said that “I can say that EFCC was not involved in that wee hours operation. We have been investigating some judges and our modus operandi have been painstaking.”
He also said that when a high profile person was being investigated, it was not a day job to immediately drag the person to court without having all the necessary information about the matter.
On whether the commission had investigated the affected Judges, he said, “we have not investigated all of them, a few of them filed petitions and investigations are ongoing.”
He further stated that people who had expressed dismay over the incident were not against fighting corruption but the methodology used, adding, “there is a way to do something good and it becomes bad.”
He also said it was the duty of the committee to review procedures of operations of the security agencies to be in line with the democratic tenets.