A house of representatives panel says the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) illegally paid N2 billion to Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF), from recovered loot.
At its sitting on Tuesday, the house ad hoc committee probing the status of recovered loot queried Malami on the funds which they said they never approved as a budgetary allocation.
The lawmakers cited a letter from the CBN which indicated that the apex bank directed the release of the funds following a request made for the money to be used to prosecute terror suspects.
They also tackled the minister of justice for allegedly requesting payment of approved solicitors’ fees from the recovered loot.
Adejoro Adeogun, chairman of the committee, said: “The honourable attorney general of the federation is requesting payment of approved solicitors’ fees. You see, you are asking for solicitors’ fees from recovered funds’ accounts. I don’t think it is proper; that is what we are talking about.
“The question I want to ask regards to the payment of N2 billion which you received for the prosecution of terrorism suspects; was it supposed to come from that [recovered funds] account or should it have been part of the budgetary spending? Is it that when you exhaust your budget, you ask these people to send you some money?”
But Malami denied making specific requests from the recovered loot, although he did not deny receiving the said N2 billion from the CBN.
“Where the money comes from is a function of the federal ministry of finance and I am not making specific requests out of the recovered assets,” he said.
The lawmakers then presented a letter from the central bank titled, ‘Request for approval to effect critical payments in respect of federal ministry of justice for the recovered (funds)’.
Adeogun said the letter shows “the attorney-general knows that this is coming from the recovered funds; which means that the attorney-general.
