The attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, has been dragged before a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, over abuse of office.
Also dragged before the court alongside the minister is a civil servant, a staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, Ms Asabe Waziri, who is said to be at the centre of the case in which the AGF is being accused of bias.
Asabe was said to have bought a property worth N130m in the Maitama District of Abuja.
In the suit, filed by an international businessman and property developer, Mr Cecil Osakwe, he is praying the court for an order of N1b damages against the AGF.
Osakwe, through his lawyer, Mr Victor Giwa, said his reputation has been damaged through the actions and decisions of the AGF in a civil case.
Osakwe sued Malami in his personal and official capacity for abused of office, as Minister of Justice, when he preferred charges against him, and used the charge as a tool to blackmail and arm-twist him into giving out two units of 3-bedroom flats in one of his properties at Mekong Close, Maitama, Abuja to Asabe Waziri, even against a valid Court Order.
Giwa also claimed that the Attorney General, used his office to supervise the continuous harassment of Osakwe by men of the Nigerian police force on matters that are purely civil, with respect to the sales of the property.
According to him, his client brought the action against the AGF, claiming that Malami acted with malice, and abused his office in raising a charge of “collecting money under false pretense’’ from Asabe Waziri, when he was fully aware that Asabe Waziri moved into the property and lived in the said property for over eight months before she was eventually vacated from the property by a lawful court order that terminated the sales transaction between both parties.
Miss Waziri and Mr Osakwe have been in a fierce battle over control of two units of 3-bedroom flats which were sold to Waziri by Abeh Signature Ltd, a company owned by Osakwe.
