Godwin Tsa, Abuja

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), on Wednesday resumed office at the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Justice in Abuja.

Malami and 42 others were sworn in yesterday as ministers by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The new AGF resumed office at about 2.40pm and was welcome by the cheering members of staff of the ministry just an hour after his inauguration.

He served in the same office of AGF during president Buhari’s first term in office.

Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, was born on April 17, 1967, in  Birnin Kebbi, the capital of Kebbi State.

He commenced his formal education at Nassarawa Primary School, Birnin Kebbi before he proceeded to College of Arts and Arabic Studies to complete his secondary school education.

Malami graduated from Usmanu Danfodiyo University in 1991, where he studied Law and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1992. He is an alumnus of the University of Maiduguri where he obtained his master’s degree in Public Administration in 1994. As a legal practitioner,  Malami served in various capacities, including being a counsel and magistrate in Kebbi State and as National Legal Adviser of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, CPC. He was elevated to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 2008.

Malami, SAN, was actively involved in the formation of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2013 as the resource person to the Manifesto Drafting Sub-Committee of Inter Joint Party Merger Committees between the CPC, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP. In 2014, Malami vied for the governorship ticket of the APC in Kebbi State but lost the primaries to Alhaji Atiku Bugudu. However, after President Muhammadu Buhari won the 2015 presidential election, he appointed Malami as his Minister for Justice and Attorney-General of the  Federation. Malami’s appointment on November 11, 2015, made him the youngest Minister in President Buhari’s first-term cabinet.
During his first spell in office as AGF, Malami contributed to the drafting of various Presidential Executive Orders, particularly numbers six and eight.

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Executive Order number Six relates to the Preservation of Assets Connected with Corruption, while Order Eight governs the Voluntary Offshore Assets Registration Scheme (VOARS).

The VOARS, unveiled on April 2, 2019 is essentially, targeted at tracking and stopping illicit financial flows in and out of the country.

He equally contributed in the the establishment of the Presidential Committee on Prisons Reform and Decongestion (PCPRD),  headed by the Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Justice Ishaq Bello.

In that regard he inaugurated the committee on October 31, 2017, which it facilitated the release of 3,740 prisoners.

Malami is equally credited with aiding the success of the Federal Government’s initiative deployed to address the challenge of dealing with the army of arrested Boko Haram suspects, who were kept for years in various detention centres, unattended to by the previous government.

In the area of the recovery of looted funds, he recorded many milestones recorded in collaboration with foreign partners, which he attributed to the Asset Recovery and Management Unit (ARMU) of the Ministry of Justice.

The ministry under his watch played a major role in facilitating international and national cooperation in the recovery of stolen assets, Open Government Partnership (OGP) Initiatives (which are directed at ensuring transparency in the management of government’s affairs) and reforms of anti-corruption policy and electoral law.

The ministry also released the National Anti-Corruption Strategy Framework (NACSF)for collaboration by all the relevant agencies.”