Civil Rights advocacy Group HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has applauded the rights-based approach the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission adopted in the arrest and detention of erstwhile Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Alhaji Abubakar Malami, SAN, compared to the atrocious and cruel manner Malmi treated the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) when then government of Muhammadu Buhari (late) abducted him and renditioned him to Nigeria on handcuffs after security forces rough handled and beat him up in Nairobi Kenys with the support of Malami as Justice minister.
Corollary, HURIWA said Malami should be grateful that the EFCC respected his dignity by inviting him like s gentleman before he was detained unlike how the same EFCC invaded the Asokoro family home of the former minister of Labour and Employment Dr Chris Nwabueze Ngige and whisked him off to their fortified detention facility in Abuja in his night pyjamas without even given heed to his constitutionally guaranteed right to his human dignity as enshrined in the chapter 4 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999, as amended.
HURIWA which also compared the inhumane way that the EFCC invaded the Maitama home of the former governor of Imo state(Rochas Okorocha) in the Igbo Heartland through the roofs of his house and whisked him off in the dead of the night just as the anti-graft agency also maltreated another Igbo former governor of Anambra State Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige whom they took away like a petty thief in his pyjamas without the faintest respect for his right to the dignity of his humanity, HURIWA asked Malami to bear his self-inflicted ordeals in the hands of the law enforcement agency that he as a minister under Buhari misused to witchunt others and be appreciative to EFCC for not given him the ‘IGBO TREATMENTS’ that EFCC gave to two former Igbo governors in the person of Ngige and Rochas Okorocha.
HURIWA through a media statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko noted that Abubakar Malami, SAN, former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, had clarified the circumstances leading to his continued detention by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), despite voluntarily reporting to the agency on Monday.
The former minister is being questioned over several issues, including allegations relating to terrorism financing, the ownership of 46 bank accounts, the engagement of multiple legal representatives in the recovery of the $322.5 million Abacha loot, and the utilisation of funds released under the conditional cash transfer programme.
Malami explained that he was detained without being given any specific reason other than being informed that his earlier administrative bail had been revoked, despite not breaching the bail terms.
In a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Mohammed Bello Doka, Malami stated that he had been given new bail conditions, which he is prepared to meet once the EFCC authorises him to do so.
Malami had dismissed allegations of terrorism financing and ownership of 46 bank accounts, saying they are “false, misleading and baseless.”
HURIWA which carpeted Malami for complaining even when he was treated humanely compared to how Malami paraded Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to the media in handcuffs after Buhari’s armed goons with tje backing of Abubakar Malami as minister of justice, abducted from Nairobi Kenya to Nigeria of the now jailed leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra whose human rights to the dignity of his person was violated by Buhari’s government with the central backing of Malami who failed to give Nnamdi Kanu the benefit of the doubt as been innocent in the eyes of theblaw until convicted by a competent court of law as explicitly provided in section 36(5) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. “Malami should be man enough to eat the same bad meal that he prepared for Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
HURIWA has also called on the EFCC to respect the constitutional rights of suspects and to desist from maltreatment of accused person like the inhumane and absolutely despicable manner that EFCC arrested Chris Nwabueze Ngige in his pyjamas as disclosed by family sources. EFCC as a creation of the law must be law abiding and must operate in total compliance to the human rights provisions enshrined in chapter 4 of the constitution which are enforceable and the operatives of the anti-graft agency shouldn’t create discriminatory methodology for arresting former public office holders of Igbo ethnic nationality as against how all others are arrested because all citizens are equal before the law.
