Offa Robbery: Again, AGF Malami writes IGP Idris, insists Saraki innocent

Nigeria’s Attorney-General, Abubakar Malami, has written yet
another letter to Inspector-General Ibrahim Idris, informing him
that the police still do not have reasonable evidence to put Senate
President Bukola Saraki on trial for the armed robbery that took
place in Kwara State earlier this year., PREMIUM TIMES
report

In a legal advice which Mr Malami’s office sent to Mr Idris on
June 29, it was strongly recommended that Mr Saraki should not be
identified as a suspect in the robbery because there was no
evidence.

PREMIUM TIMES recently obtained a copy of the June 29 memo,
which was an update to the June 22 preliminary report that
exonerated Mr Saraki. PREMIUM TIMES exclusively published the
outcome of the preliminary investigation in July.

The police excoriated PREMIUM TIMES for the report at the time,
saying an interim document should not be relied on because fresh
findings had been forwarded to the attorney-general which strongly
linked Mr Saraki to the robbery.

But Mohammed Etsu, the federal director of public prosecution
who prepared both the first and second reports for the
attorney-general, insisted there was “no departure from the earlier
findings in the interim report this office is still unable to
establish any” actionable evidence against Mr Saraki “for any
offences of criminal armed robbery and culpable homicide punishable
with death”.

Mr Malami also cleared Yusuf Abdulwahab, the chief of staff to
Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, of any involvement in the armed
robbery.

The police investigation did not uncover “any collaborative
evidence linking” Mr Abdulwahab “to the Offa bank robbery,” the
attorney-general said, consequently justifying a court’s decision
that earlier admitted the senior aide to bail.

There is a judicial precedent that a suspect who has not been
tried and convicted by a competent court could be admitted to bail,
Mr Malami added. Mr Abdulwahab was similarly cleared in the
preliminary report.

The attorney-general’s office said only prime suspects who took
part in the robbery should be charged to court for armed robbery
and murder, both of which could draw capital punishment upon
conviction.

The AGF also ordered that the case should be returned to Kwara
State for prosecution, marking yet another blow to the police’s
determination to try all the suspects in Abuja.

The decision is a major victory for the Kwara State judiciary,
which took concerted steps to assert its authority over the matter
but was frustrated by the domineering powers of the police, an
institution controlled solely by the president.

The charges against the armed robbery suspects “were committed
in Offa, Kwara State” and should be under the “exclusive
jurisdiction” of the Kwara State High Court as enumerated in the
Constitution, Mr Malami said.

Carnage Overshadowed By Politics
The robbery of five different banks on April 5 left at least 31
dead in Offa, home to a major federal polytechnic and
second-biggest town in the North-Central state. Amongst those
killed were nine police officers, motorists and town residents,
police said.

The police deemed the robbery amongst the deadliest in recent
years, and swung into action to unravel its plotters.

A special police team detailed to investigate the incident
arrested seven suspects within the first two days of the attack,
and made more arrests in succeeding days.

Six weeks later, the police said they had taken two more
suspects into custody, including the alleged mastermind, Michael
Adikwu, after a composite CCTV picture of the suspects was
circulated by the police.

Mr Malami said in the June 29 letter to Mr Idris that Mr Adikwu
died in police custody shortly after his arrest, but the Force
Headquarters suppressed the development from Nigerians until last
week.

But the matter took a political dimension when the police
publicly linked Messrs Saraki and Ahmed and their political
associates to the robbery.

The police circulated a picture one of the robbery suspects took
with Mr Saraki at his daughter’s wedding last year as a key
evidence that linked the Senate President to both the suspects and
the crime. The police also said one of the vehicles used by the
suspects had a dummy number plate with Mr Saraki’s name inscribed
on it.

Also, some officials of Kwara State government were also
arrested and one of the vehicles allegedly used in the robbery was
found in the home of a commissioner.

All the state officials denied allegations, and some were later
released without charges.

The two conclusions of the attorney-general bolstered Mr
Saraki’s perennial outcry that he had nothing to do with the armed
robbery. He accused the police of being used as a political tool by
President Muhammadu Buhari, with whom he had fell out after playing
a critical role in his emergence as president.

Mr Buhari’s government has initiated several criminal charges
against Mr Saraki since the former Kwara governor emerged Senate
President in 2015 without the approval of the ruling All
Progressives Congress.

The top lawmaker, who has since abandoned the ruling party for
the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, has, however, managed
to win some of the criminal charges against him, including the
Supreme Court ruling that extricated him of false assets
declaration charges earlier this year.

‘Disparaging Suggestion’
In concluding his legal advice to the police, Mr Malami warned a
police chief in charge of the armed robbery investigation to desist
from offering ‘condescending opinions’ to the AGF’s office.

David Ogbodo, an assistant inspector-general of police, had
suggested in the second police submission that Mr Malami should
step aside in the case and detail a senior Nigerian lawyer to
handle prosecutorial advice.

Mr Malami said his office had dispassionately prosecuted several
cases that were successful, and warned Mr Igbodo to desist from
making official comments that could be deemed as “disparaging” to
the office of the AGF.

As the attorney-general, Mr Malami regularly authors legal
advices to the police and other law enforcement agencies on how to
proceed in criminal litigations.

In 2017, the AGF advised the president to relax charges in the
$1.1 billion Malamu oil scandal, one of the flagship corruption
cases being prosecuted by the administration.

Mr Malami said there was no sufficient evidence to nail a former
petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, and former
Attorney-General Bello Adoke.

He said the suspects cannot be held liable for acting on the
orders of President Goodluck Jonathan in approving the 2011 deal
between Shell-Agip and Dan Etete, a former Nigerian oil minister
who had been convicted on money laundering charges in France in
2007.

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