The United States, India and Ghana have written to the Nigerian Ministry of Justice demanding the extradition of 11 Nigerians for drugs and money laundering related crimes.
The extradition requests were contained in a report of Ministerial Performance for the Ministry of Justice prepared by the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN) for the period May 2019 – May 2020.
The report revealed that the department of International Cooperation received eight extradition requests from the United States, Three from Ghana and One from India during the period covered by the report.
While presenting the report to the Federal Executive Council, the Attorney General noted further that the department also received 62 requests for investigative assistance from the three countries under the Mutual Legal Assistance Pact signed with Nigeria.
The report noted that the Ministry of Justice provided assistance with the extradition requests by sending letters to INTERPOL on the locations of the persons of interest. It however refused to honour the request from India because it involved a case of money laundering carried out by four Indian nationals.
“The request was denied by the HAGF (Honourable Attorney General of the Federation) because the offences allegedly committed by the suspects appeared to be political in nature. Letter denying the request was sent to India,” the report read.
The report revealed further that 42 MOUs and Agreements between Nigeria and other countries were vetted while the Department of Public Prosecutions handled 1,120 terrorism related cases during the period. 500 of the cases are being pursued in court while other have been recommended for the Federal Government’s de-radicalization and amnesty programme. It further projected 2023 for the conclusion of at least half of the terrorism related cases.
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3,392 general/financial related cases were received from the Nigeria Police for prosecution due to the enactment of the Criminal Justice Act of 2015. It also stated that 1,359 cases of conspiracy/armed robbery and 10 cases of Securities and Exchange Commission-related offences were being prosecuted by the Justice Ministry. It stated that about 2,500 of the current cases would be concluded by December, 2020.
10 cases of hostage taking/kidnapping, seven cases of pipeline vandalism as well as 10 cases of vandalism of electricity equipment are also being prosecuted by the Ministry. There are also 25 pending cases before the court of Appeal and 10 before the Supreme Court.
The report was concluded with a dire warning to anti-corruption agencies to desist from media trial of suspects.
“The ministry has approvals in place for several of its programmes, but such approvals need to be backed by prompt release of funds to enable proper execution.
“Note that ACAs (anti-corruption agencies) need to recognise that their prosecutorial mandates derive from the constitutional powers of the HAGF, hence the need for their compliance with requests that will facilitate the coordination mandate and the need for inter-agency cooperation to preserve the integrity of the prosecution processes.
“ACAs also need to desist from ‘media trials’ especially where investigations have yet to reveal tangible evidence that will sustain charges when filed in court.”