The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) yesterday said the sting operation carried out by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) between October 7 and 8 was constitutional.
The AGF, who appeared before the Garba Datti-led House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating the arrest of judicial officers, told the committee that he approved the operation based on the petitions before him concerning some corrupt practices of some judicial officers.
He explained that the action was carried out in accordance with the provisions of Section 15 sub-section 5 of the Constitution, which stated that all institutions of government and, indeed public officers operating in the country were barred from corrupt acts and that the three arms of government— the executive, the legislature and the judiciary— should take steps to abolish all forms of corrupt practices.
The AGF further told the committee that his office was in receipt of a motley of petitions of alleged corrupt practices by judicial officers and that there were agitations from the petitioners that if immediate steps were not taken, evidences against the suspects could be tampered with.
The AGF said when he reported the allegations against some judges and justices to the National Judicial Council (NJC) requesting the council to take administrative steps to investigate the allegations, the NJC said it would not investigate unless there were supporting affidavits.
Contending that the DSS acted in accordance with the constitution in the search and arrest of some judges and justices, the AGF said there were reasonable ground for suspicion of the affected judges, as Section 15 (5) vested the state with a constitutional obligation to abolish all corrupt practices, using all its powers.
He said the constitution did not provide any special protection for judges, and that he was duly informed before and after the operation was carried out, stressing that as long as the National Assembly had not abrogated decrees promulgated by the military since 1966, the laws remained valid.
The Minister told the ad-hoc committee that some judges and justices had no asset declaration record with the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
Malami said: “When we are talking about constitutional obligations, it goes without saying that all state instruments, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) are under obligation, inclusive of the legislature and the judiciary, to take steps that will abolish corrupt practices.”
“It is in respect of that obligation that whatever issue arises from the search and arrest of the judicial officers were carried out.”
“The state was in receipt of multiple petitions of corrupt practices by the judicial officers and there was further apprehension that if immediate steps were not taken, the possibility of dissipating existing evidence that were believed to have been kept within their respective domain will eventually be tampered with.
“Arising from the responsibility created and established by Section 15 of the constitution, the state had to act.
“But the question of which agency has the responsibility of executing it, my response to that derives from the fact that multiple petitions were written to Office of the AGF, DSS, EFCC and a lot of other agencies of government and to my mind, I have a discretion to weigh the situation and decide which agency, against the background of the petition, will act for the purpose of ensuring that the obligation of the provisions of Section 15 (5) of the constitution are carried out.
“So whatever evolved from the search and arrest of the judicial officers revolved around the need to comply with the responsibility and obligation vested on them by provisions of the constitution and the need to ensure that the investigation is not in any way tampered with negatively.
“These were the circumstances that led to the operation. It was a clear exercise of the constitutional mandate in respect of what is expected of the state to abolish corrupt practices.”
“When we got the petitions, I had cause personally to write to NJC requesting that they take administrative steps to investigate the allegations contained in the petitions.
“A response was made to office that NJC can only act unless the petitions were accompanied with affidavits but I felt there was no reason the petitions cannot be looked on their own merit by placing sanctions on the AGF while it was a constitutional obligation.
“I asked EFCC and DSS and another agency to investigate because they were in receipt of several petitions on the same subject and I was informed by the DSS before the search and arrest and I did not object.
“The DSS presented a formal report to me before and after effecting the search and arrest, they informed me that the operation will be done at any hour without restriction.”
In his remarks, Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Datti, who noted that the investigative hearing was to forestall undue infringement on the rights of ordinary Nigerians, assured that nobody was being put on trial.
He added that the House had the mandate to recommend for amendment of the relevant laws where there is lacuna in order to avoid conflict of interest among the security agencies.