The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Malami Abubakar has denied accusations that 48 million barrels of oil worth $2.4 million disappeared from the government’s books while appearing yesterday before an ad-hoc committee of the House of Representatives investigating the matter.
According to Malami, the alarm, which he termed baseless, was raised by fraudulent individuals who tried to trick the government into paying for undue recoveries. He claimed that his office, after conducting a probe, established a case of fraud against those who raised the allegation.
Malami said: “The allegations relating to the 48 million barrels of crude oil are baseless. The allegation is unfounded. It lacks merit and indeed substance.
“The allegation in its own right is devoid of any reasonable ground pointing to a material suspicion cogent enough to invoke the constitutional oversight of the committee.”
Responding to questions about whether his office approved payment of over $200 million to whistleblowers and his controversial involvement in the management of recovered funds, Malami said all recovered funds were managed by the Ministry of Finance and the office of the Accountant General of the Federation.
”In 2020, the Office of Attorney-General was instrumental to the recovery of 311.4 million dollars from Benwick Jazzy US and UK.
“That money was lodged into the asset recovery account of the Federal Government maintained in the Central Bank, opened at the instance of the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General.”
“Nobody in the Office of the Attorney-General was a signatory or responsible for the operation and coordination of the account.”