The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Friday, re-arraigned Abubakar Malami, former Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), his wife, Asabe Bashir, and son, Abdulaziz Malami, on money laundering charges.
They were re-arraigned before trial judge Joyce Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
This followed the transfer of the case to the new judge, who is the third to be assigned the trial since the filing of the charges in December last year.
EFCC first arraigned the defendants on 30 December 2025 before Emeka Nwite, also of the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, while he was sitting as vacation judge during the last Christmas/New Year break.
However, upon resumption of the regular court sessions after the Yuletide break, Mr Nwite returned the case file to the chief judge of the Federal High Court in line with practice for reassignment to a new judge.
The chief judge, John Tsoho, then assigned the case to Judge Obiora Egwuatu, also in the Abuja division of the court, who voluntarily withdrew earlier this month on personal grounds, prompting a reassignment to Mrs Abdulmalik.
Friday’s hearing
At Friday’s hearing, EFCC’s lawyer, Jibrin Okutepa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), noted that the matter “is coming before your lordship this morning for the very first time. I will be applying for the plea of the defendants to be taken.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Okutepa orally applied for errors in the amounts of money alleged to be involved in a few counts.
Mr Okutepa requested that the sums alleged in Counts 11 and 12 be corrected to read N325 million instead of N325 billion for Count 11, and N120 million instead of N120 billion for Count 12.
Defence lawyer Joseph Daudu, a SAN, opposed the correction request.
But the judge granted the oral application from Mr Okutepa to permit the correction.
The charges were thereafter read to the defendants, who again pleaded not guilty to all 16 counts.
EFCC alleged in the charges that Mr Malami and his co-defendants hid and moved around about N8.7 billion, some of which was allegedly used to acquire properties in Abuja and other places, in a money laundering scheme.
The defendants allegedly committed the offences from when Mr Malami was in office as the AGF up till 2025 when he had left office.
Other charges
Apart from the money laundering case, Mr Malami faces assets forfeiture proceedings also filed by the EFCC and terrorism financing charges filed by the State Security Service (SSS).
On 6 January, Mr Nwite issued an order of interim forfeiture of the 57 assets valued at almost N213 billion to the federal government at the instance of the EFCC, which alleged that the properties were suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities linked to Mr Malami.
The judge directed that the interim forfeiture order would be in place while anyone with legitimate claim to the assets comes forward with proof, to enable the court to decide whether to order a permanent forfeiture of the assets to the federal government.
EFCC instituted the forfeiture proceedings following its agents’ raid on Mr Malami’s houses in offices. The raid allegedly led to discovery of arms on some of the premises.
Mr Malami has denied the discovery of arms on any premises linked to him, while the EFCC passed the allegation to the SSS for further investigation.
SSS arrested Mr Malami in January as he was released from Kuje Correctional Centre in Abuja where they were remanded pending when they met their bail conditions set by the trial judge in the money laundering case.
The SSS subsequently arraigned Mr Malami and his son, Abdulaziz, on 3 February, before Ms Abdulmalik of the Federal High Court in Abuja on terrorism financing and firearms charges.
The case includes firearms charges and the charges and allegations that Mr Malami, sometime in November 2022, knowingly abetted terrorism financing by allegedly refusing to prosecute suspected terrorism financiers whose case files were forwarded to his office while he served as Attorney General of the Federation.
He and his son denied all six counts.
But despite the arraignment, Mr Malami has yet to be released from SSS’ cutody.
Meanwhile, Mr Malami has since challenged the anti-graft agency’s permanent forfeiture of assets application.
In a motion on notice filed on 27 January, Mr Malami, through his team of lawyers led by Mr Daudu, alleged that the anti-corruption agency got the interim order by suppression of material facts and misrepresentation.
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The former AGF warned against what he described as “conflicting outcomes” and “duplicative litigation.” He argued that the action violated his rights to property, presumption of innocence and family life.
In the application urging the court to lift the interim forfeiture order and dismiss EFCC’s application for permanent forfeiture of the affected assets, Mr Malami listed the values of six sources of income, which by PREMIUM TIMES’ calculation were summed up to about N14.96 billion (N15 billion).
More applicants had also joined Malami in urging the court to vacate the interim order of forfeiture.
The asset forfeiture proceedings have been stalled by repeated transfers of the case from one judge to another.