Abubakar Malami
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of justice,
Abubakar Malami, has said that the raids carried out weekend by the
State Security Service on residences of senior judges were routine
investigations, and were legitimate.
Premium Times reports that the minister who was addressing
journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, said the government had resolved to
fight corruption, and would not be deterred by class or reputation of
suspects.
“Once crimes and criminality are concerned, nobody is an
exception. I think the undertone should be exclusively the consideration
of the existence of a prima facie case; existence of reasonable grounds
for suspicion of commission of a crime,” he said.
“And if there are, no member of the legislature, judiciary and
executive can definitely be exempted from investigation. I think where
we are now is the point of investigation and that is what is taking
place.”
Mr. Malami said the search and subsequent arrest of seven judges
were steps in an ongoing investigation that even constitutionally
guaranteed immunity does not prevent.
“The bottom line is that we have a responsibility to fight
corruption. Corruption is a crime and nobody, regardless of how highly
placed, is exempted as far as issues that border on crimes and
criminalities are concerned.
“The limited exceptions, as we know constitutionally, are the
exceptions of immunity. And to the best of my knowledge, those
exceptions do not apply to investigation. For those that are conferred
with the immunity, the right to investigate has not been taken away
constitutionally.
“So, I think the framework and the circumstances within which
we are operating are clearly whether there exists the right to
investigate or not, and whether the action borders on criminality,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment