Reps grills Malami over alleged illegal sale of $2.4bn crude oil

The House of Representatives on Thursday grilled the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, over the alleged illegal sale of 48 million barrels of crude oil valued at $2.4 billion.

The lower legislative chamber had in December last year set up an ad hoc committee to probe the loss of $2.4 billion from the illegal sale of crude oil in 2015.

The AGF was accompanied to the investigative hearing by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice/Solicitor-General of the Federation, Beatrice Jedy-Agba.

The hearing was the second in the last few weeks.

Malami had last month dismissed reports on the alleged loss of $2.4 billion in revenue from the alleged illegal sale of crude oil to China in 2015.

The AGF, who described the ad-hoc committee as unconstitutional, said the allegation was “baseless, unfounded, and lacks merit.

He restated his position on the allegation at Thursday’s meeting and asked the lawmakers to provide the documents and facts at their disposal to enable him to carry out a detailed investigation on the matter.

In his remark, the chairman of the committee, Mark Gbillah, said the lawmakers were in possession of the documents released by the Federal Government on the matter.

He said: “On this particular issue, which we will not say openly but will take up with you in private because we also understand certain things are classified and confidential.

“We are not just embarking on something that is a wild goose chase. I want to put that on the record.”