A pro-democracy and civil rights body, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has listed the outgoing Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, as the worst ever Justice Minister since Nigeria’s independence in 1960. It stated that by so doing, the Minister has earned his place in the national black book of anti-democratic forces in Africa.

HURIWA blamed much of the breakdown of law and order to the promotion of impunity at the highest levels by the Presidency going by the poor quality of legal briefs the President receives from his chief law officer.

Other persons listed in the national black book of anti-democratic forces are the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commissioner (INEC) Yakubu Mohmood for conducting the most corrupt and manipulated elections in the world in the year 2019.

The immediate past, Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Kpodum, is also listed alongside the immediate past Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) Lawal Daura who was sacked for attempting to overthrow constituted authority of the National Assembly.

In a media statement endorsed jointly by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA blamed the destabilisation of the independence of the judiciary which culminated in the illegal removal, through a rigged process of the immediate past Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen through a flawed and choreographed trial by the ethically-challenged Code of Conduct Tribunal chairman.

It also listed the crimes of AGF Malami as the detentions against clearly issued binding court orders for the release of the immediate past National Security Adviser, Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd); leader of Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Shelk Ibraheem El Zackzacky and wife and the failure for two years to reconstitute the governing board of National Human Rights Commission.

HURIWA says that all the shortcomings it listed show that the holder of the high office of the Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Malami, is not a fit and proper person to hold such a high office of the Chief law officer of the nation in line with the relevant sections of the constitution.

The rights group stated that if President Muhammadu Buhari, who only became civilian president after over 35 years in the military institution has been guided by a core professional lawyer who is tested and trusted, then much of the constitutional crises we have faced in the last four years would have been prevented.

HURIWA stated that the fact that Malami was in charge when a kangaroo procedure was activated that resulted in the decapitation of the independence of the judiciary through the illegal removal of the substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria to make way for a compliant head of the judiciary, is a muddy process that will remain the lowest point of our democracy.

On the INEC chairman, HURIWA said he is in the infamous national black book of anti-democracy because he supervised the worst and most violent election in which the ruling party adopted crooked means to railroad itself into office.

The rights group lamented that the immediate past DG of the DSS allegedly staged a coup against the National Assembly but due to impunity and lawlessness the current Federal Government is protecting him from facing the full weight of the law. The failure to reconstitute the governing board of the National Human Rights Commission demonstrates the poor appreciation by Buhari’s administration of the strategic place of human rights promotion and protection in the running of constitutional democracy.

Update news