The former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, was to be questioned over at least five transactions conducted during his tenure in office, according to a report published in July 2023, shortly after he left office.
![](https://thenigerialawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/NBBSPIDEL.png")
![](https://thenigerialawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-Summer-IDRI-Masterclass.jpg")
The report by TheCable, which stated that a security agency would handle the interrogation, listed the transactions under examination as the payment of 496 million dollars to Global Steel Holdings Limited as settlement for the termination of the Ajaokuta Steel concession, nine years after the Indian company had waived all claims for compensation; his handling of the sale of assets worth billions of naira forfeited to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by politically exposed persons; his role in the 419 million dollar judgment debt awarded to consultants who claimed to have facilitated the Paris Club refunds to the states; the agreement to pay Sunrise Power 200 million dollars in compensation over the Mambilla power project; and duplicated legal fees arising from the transfer of 321 million dollars in recovered Abacha funds from Switzerland.
Ajaokuta: The Settlement After The Settlement
In September 2022, the then Attorney-General announced that the Federal Government had resolved what he described as a long-standing contractual dispute with Global Steel over the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited and the National Iron Ore Mining Company, Itakpe, concessions. He said that instead of paying the original claim of 5.258 billion dollars, Nigeria had secured a 91 per cent reduction and would pay 496 million dollars.
The difficulty identified in the report is that the matter had twice been reported as closed. In 2013, the then senator from Kogi State, Mr. Smart Adeyemi, said the Goodluck Jonathan administration had recovered the Ajaokuta mill “without any attendant financial obligation whatsoever”. The 2022 settlement also came five years after the then Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, announced that Nigeria had resolved all the issues around Ajaokuta and recovered ownership.
Global Steel had entered the Nigerian steel industry in 2004 after securing five major concessions and entering share purchase agreements under the Obasanjo administration. The relationship deteriorated under the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, and in June 2008 the government revoked the company’s 10-year Ajaokuta concession on the ground that it was involved in asset stripping, and terminated the Itakpe concession, prompting the company to commence arbitration.
In 2010, a committee headed by the then Solicitor-General of the Federation, Mr. Abdullahi Yola, recommended that the Jonathan administration pay compensation of 525 million dollars for the revocations. The administration opted instead for mediation, with the company reportedly agreeing after what the report described as its underbelly was exposed.
It was alleged that the company had violated the terms of the concessions by bringing in no foreign investment and instead leveraging the assets of the companies to raise loans from Nigerian banks, that it had engaged in asset stripping by selling assets without regard for the companies’ fortunes, and that it had evaded tax, with its promoters to be prosecuted in a Nigerian court.
Faced with possible criminal charges, the promoters gave up their claims to Ajaokuta without any payment by the Nigerian government, and in return Itakpe was to be restored to them because the termination process in that case was considered faulty.
In 2016, the Buhari administration approved the execution of a modified concession agreement allowing the firm to retain Itakpe. In September 2017, Dr. Fayemi announced that all agreements had been signed and that Nigeria had retrieved full ownership of the mills, with the then Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, executing the agreement on behalf of Nigeria.
“With this development, both NIOMCO and Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited have now reverted to the Federal Government of Nigeria, and we can now proceed to engage a new core investor with the financial and technical capacity to run the steel complex,” Dr. Fayemi said at the time.
In May 2020, however, the company threatened to return to arbitration at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris in respect of all the contracts cancelled by the Yar’Adua administration. The report states that this was kept out of public knowledge by both the Federal Government and the company, with some insiders suggesting that the new threat was made in connivance with senior government officials. The company’s lawyers initially threatened to claim up to 14 billion dollars in damages before reducing the figure to 5.258 billion dollars.
On 3 September 2022, Nigeria announced that it had reached a settlement of 496 million dollars, saying it had rescued the Nigerian steel, iron ore and rail industries from a variety of interminable and complex disputes. The legacy allegations of asset stripping, tax evasion and violation of the terms of agreement remain unresolved.
The Sale Of Recovered Assets
In August 2022, the head of the Asset Recovery and Management Unit at the Ministry of Justice, Mrs. Ladidi Mohammed, was questioned by the EFCC over allegations of fraud in the disposal of recovered assets worth billions of naira. No charges were brought against her.
She was granted administrative bail on conditions she was unable to meet immediately, and was later invited for further questioning. According to the report, she told the commission that she had acted under the then Attorney-General’s instructions in disposing of assets forfeited to the Federal Government by persons undergoing corruption trials, but was unable to produce documentary evidence, saying the instructions had been given verbally.
The report further stated that the then Attorney-General had granted a multibillion-naira asset recovery contract to an estate valuer, Gerry Ikputu & Partners, tasked with recovering significant tracts of land and structures believed to belong to the Federal Government in 10 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The firm in turn engaged a law firm, M.E. Sheriff & Co, to act as its agent.
Under the letter of award dated 5 October 2021, which gave the contractors a six-month period expiring in April 2022, the contractors were to be entitled to three per cent of the value of each successful recovery. A confidentiality clause forbade them from making public “any issue from this engagement without prior consent of the attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice”.
In the contract with the law firm, the Attorney-General provided that recovered assets were to be handed over to him “for further necessary action and directives”, and asked the firm “to work as a project team in collaboration with the Asset Recovery and Management Unit under the Office of the honourable attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice in carrying out this instruction”.
As many as 74 properties listed in the letter are located in highbrow areas of Lagos, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Abia, Anambra, Edo, Enugu, Imo and Delta states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The arrangement drew criticism from the then chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Professor Itse Sagay, SAN, who said there was no justification for engaging private firms to perform work the anti-graft agencies were competent to do.
“The EFCC and the ICPC are authorised to recover stolen public assets. So, there is absolutely no justification for hiring a third party to do what government agencies have powers and experience to do,” he said. “So, it is strange for an outside agency, who does not have that record, and will have to be paid to recover the property. That shouldn’t be; it’s wrong. That doesn’t make sense.”
Paris Club: The Consultants’ Fees
In one of the most contested matters of his tenure, consultants who claimed to have helped the states calculate their share of the Paris Club refunds sued the Federal Government for their fees.
The Attorney-General opted for an out-of-court settlement, in what the state governors described as collusion, an allegation he denied. He agreed that the states, which were still disputing the claims, would pay 418 million dollars to the consultants, with the money deducted from their federation allocations over time.
Under the arrangement, Senator Ned Nwoko, representing Delta North, was to receive 68,658,192.83 dollars, and Mr. Ted Isighohi Edwards 159,000,000 dollars. The others were Riok Nigeria Limited, 142,028,941.95 dollars; Mr. Orji Orizu, 1,219,440.45 dollars; Mr. Olaitan Bello, 215,195.36 dollars; and Panic Alert Security Systems Limited, 47,821,920 dollars.
The matter generated a public dispute between the Attorney-General and the governors. President Muhammadu Buhari initially withheld consent but eventually approved the arrangement, and promissory notes were issued to the consultants. A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja subsequently restrained the consultants from transacting with those notes.
In August 2022, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum said the consultants were using the Attorney-General “to hustle” the states’ funds. He responded that the forum had no basis to reject the proposed deduction, and that the consultants’ claims were justified.
The forum’s head of media and public affairs, Mr. Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, said there was no collective agreement between the consultants and the forum, and that evidence of work done had been requested.
“There is no component that compels the governors’ forum to pay consultants anything, and there is no agreement between the consultants collectively and governors collectively,” he said. “The Paris fund money has been exhausted, and the consultants and the attorney general are expecting the money to be deducted from states’ accounts from sources over 52 or 58 months. That is unheard of. And what the NGF is saying is that there is no money to be paid and the monies that have been paid are gross errors.”
“Where they are asking the monies to be gotten from is the biggest sacrilege. This money belongs to the states, the masses of this country, and because you’re powerful, you want money to be taken and given to you. That’s why they are using the attorney general of the federation to get the money at the source, because the state does not have any reason to pay. What the attorney general is claiming, that there is a consent judgment, is what the NGF is saying did not exist.”
“What the NGF is asking is evidence of work done. Some of them said they have constructed primary health centres across the country, and others said they have provided boreholes. These are physical things that you can show. This matter is in court. The court is the only authority that can determine clearly whether there is a reason for payment or not. Why are highly placed lawyers afraid of their own platform?”
In 2021, the governors obtained an order from a Federal High Court in Abuja restraining the Federal Government from deducting the money from the states’ accounts for the purpose of paying the disputed debt.
Mambilla: The Sunrise Settlement
In early 2020, the Attorney-General committed the Federal Government to paying Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited 200 million dollars as a final settlement of the dispute over the Mambilla power project in Taraba State. He also agreed to a penalty of 10 per cent in the event of default, in addition to restoring the company as the local content partner for the hydroelectric project.
According to documents cited in the report, the Attorney-General and the then Minister of Power, Mr. Saleh Mamman, signed on behalf of the Federal Government, while Mr. Leno Adesanya signed as chairman and chief executive of the company.
Sources cited in the report said the company had previously asked for an 80 million dollar settlement in order to withdraw its arbitration claim against Nigeria in France. The then Minister of Power, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, SAN, had contended in 2017 that there was no breach of contract as the company had done no work to warrant any demand or arbitration, and had also questioned the integrity of the contract. After his exit from the ministry, the report states, a deal was put together by the two ministers.
The project, conceived in the 1970s, has suffered severe delays. The 3,050-megawatt facility would be the second largest hydropower plant in Africa when completed.
In 2017, the company, which claimed to have been awarded the build, operate and transfer contract in 2003, brought the Federal Government and its Chinese partners before the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris over an alleged breach of contract.
In a letter dated 20 June 2017 to the then Acting President, Professor Osinbajo, requesting his intervention, Mr. Adesanya accused the late Mr. Abba Kyari, chief of staff to President Buhari, of unilaterally directing the ministry of power to sideline the company from the contract, and of doing so against the Attorney-General’s advice.
In a letter dated 24 July 2017 to the Acting President, copied to the chief of staff, the Attorney-General said the company should be engaged as a local content partner to the project “as a means of accommodating its prior contractual interests on the project”.
He reversed that position weeks later. In a further letter dated 17 August 2017 addressed to the company, he said his previous opinion had been issued on the basis of the limited materials then provided, and that there had been no requisite Federal Executive Council approval for the project.
“The logical conclusion in the circumstances should be that there was no valid contract between Federal Government of Nigeria and SPTC in respect of the project or at all,” he wrote.
In a memorandum to President Buhari dated 26 March 2020, he asked for approval to pay the company 200 million dollars as full and final settlement, to discontinue the arbitration in Paris and release the government from all liabilities in the dispute. The President replied on Monday, 20 April, writing: “FG does not have USD 200 million to pay SPTCL.”
Abacha Funds: $17 Million In Legal Fees
In 1999, the Federal Government engaged the services of a Swiss lawyer, Mr. Enrico Monfrini, to trace, identify, freeze and recover funds traced to the late military ruler, General Sani Abacha. After seven years of work involving investigations and litigation across several countries, he traced and recovered 321 million dollars from banks in Luxembourg.
The funds were domiciled with the government of Switzerland in 2014 pending a final request for transfer from Nigeria, and the lawyers involved had been paid their fees, with the Swiss side receiving about 12 million dollars.
Rather than write directly to the Swiss authorities to seek the transfer, the report states, the Attorney-General engaged two Nigerian lawyers, Mr. Oladipo Okpeseyi, SAN, and Mr. Temitope Adebayo, to do the work again. Their involvement consisted of writing to the Swiss authorities to return the funds, no asset tracing or recovery being required at that stage.
They were paid 17 million dollars in professional fees, a sum larger than that received by the Swiss lawyer who traced and recovered the funds over seven years. Both were members of the Congress for Progressive Change, the party founded by President Buhari to contest the 2011 presidential election, of which the Attorney-General had been legal adviser.
[A MUST HAVE] Evidence Act Demystified With Recent And Contemporary Cases And Materials
Available now for NGN 40,000 at ASC Publications, 10, Boyle Street, Onikan, Lagos. Beside High Court, TBS. Email publications@ayindesanni.com or WhatsApp +2347056667384. Purchase Link: https://paystack.com/buy/evidence-act-complete-annotation
______________________________________________________________________ “Enhance Legal Practice With Authoritative Reports” — Alexander Payne Offers Comprehensive Law Reports, Spanning Over A Century Of Nigerian Jurisprudence
Interested buyers are encouraged to place their orders and enquiries via:
0704 444 4777, 0704 444 4999, 0818 199 9888
Website: www.alexandernigeria.com
The book also examines Nigeria's legal ecosystem, focusing on the LPELR and NBA AI Guidelines. As a bonus, every purchase comes with a FREE eBook titled: How to Use the AI Features in LegalPedia and LawPavilion.
Ohio Books Ltd praises the publication, stating:
"....this is the only Nigerian book I know of on the topic."
How to Order:
📞 Call, Text, or WhatsApp: 08034917063 | 07055285878
📧 Email: benadigwe1@gmail.com
🌎 Website: www.benadigwe.com
Ebook Version: Access it directly online at https://selar.com/prv626
Authored by Ben Ijeoma Adigwe Esq., ACIarb (UK), LL.M, Dip. in Artificial Intelligence, Director at the Delta State Ministry of Justice, Asaba, Nigeria.
______________________________________________________________________
