Despite his cherubic face, Abubakar Malami conjures the image of a cow bow. What remains is for him to change his habit from traditional western suit to a pair of trousers and shirts complemented with guns on both sides of his hips. But even as a lawyer, the young minister in President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet likes to frighten citizens, waving the law as his cudgel.

Sixteen years after passing out from the Nigeria Law School, Malami was conferred with the prestigious Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) title. This may be a mark of scholarship, knowledge in law and jurisprudence or right connections. But a larger feature of his career is his love for party politics and power game. He has featured in many political activities, albeit on the sidelines, mostly within the then lightweight Congress for Progress Change (CPC) under the leadership of General Muhammadu Buhari.

Perhaps, having operated in the shadows for long, Malami decided to do something bold in 2014, by contesting the governorship ticket of All Progressives Congress (APC) in his home state, Kebbi. But given his milk teeth in politics, it was easy for Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, to dust him.

Though the electoral loss greatly pained Malami, he was compensated for that setback through his appointment as a cabinet minister. With that temporary relief, Malami is said to nurse the secret hope that constitutional immunity for governors could be lifted so that he would gladly recommend the Kebbi governor for trial in relation to the alleged Abacha-era looting and money laundering that saw him detained for six months in Houston Texas, USA.

But hindered by that constitutional facility, it seems the AGF still carries his animosity about. If so, some of the legal opinions he had dished out so far come in the guise of misplaced aggression. Nonetheless, the minister relishes the fact that he joined the president in the political troubadour through the All Nigeria Peoples Party to the CPC, before casting anchor in APC, where the fortune of electoral victory smiled at them, at last.

In his quiet moments, Malami may even tinker with the feeling that his office makes him the embodiment of the presidency, because after all being the chief law officer of the country, there could be no functional dissonance if his words are made to become law.

Again, as a new breed, he can approximate and appropriate powers in the fashion of colonial interpreters to the District Commissioners. He could also interpret the swearing-in ceremony performed at the Federal Executive Council hall in the presidential villa on November 11, 2015 to be the moral equivalence to what took place in Birnin Kebbi on May 29, 2015. So, nothing is remiss as what he lost by the loss of the governorship, he can make up by becoming an executive minister.

In the past seven months Abubakar Malami has undertaken many executive assignments, most of which bore red flags against the survival of democracy. Nigerians got the first hint that the AGF was acting like a cowboy weeks after he was inaugurated, by his hasty comments about the Kogi governorship election.

Most Nigerians recalled that prior to his appointment as cabinet minister Malami was the Legal Adviser of the CPC. Furthermore, he was part of the legal team of the APC and member of the manifesto sub-committee of the party.

While the nation was confounded by the sudden death of the Kogi State governorship candidate of the APC at the point of collating the votes, the AGF joined in the public discussion of the possible and safe way forward. It was puzzling that by the time of Audu’s demise, the election had been won and lost between the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Captain Idris Wada and APC.

Whether it was an innocent intervention or meant to ingratiate the political interest of his CPC group within the APC amalgam, Malami declared that the party could substitute its dead flag bearer in the Kogi governorship poll.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) saw the AGF’s opinion as the practical lead it needed to untie the gubernatorial knot, because by substitution it understood that a fresh candidate should be brought in to replace the dead instead of canceling the election or upgrading the dead man’s running mate to continue the race they began together.

As the development attracted national outrage and comments, most commentators wondered whether Malami spoke as AGF or as APC legal adviser. The curious ambivalence of the AGF’s position in the matter of Kogi governorship and harvest of dead man’s votes, not only caused divisions in the APC, but also raised apprehensions about the durability of Nigeria’s democracy.

What was more apparent was the incipient, but latent fault lines with the new ruling party. In Kogi, the AGF’s stand was interpreted as the extension of the political muscle flexing between the tendencies in the APC from the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) branch and its CPC ally.

Based on his intervention, Malami was seen as the arrowhead of the plot for the political expansionism of the CPC arm against the ACN wing. Accusing the AGF of suffering from conflict of interests, most APC faithful in Kogi, still hold the belief that his judgment in the governorship saga did not meet the golden mark of morality and objectivity.

But if the AGF’s advice or intervention in Kogi could be downplayed as part of the internal affairs of APC, what happened later caught the nation aghast. Some misunderstanding arose within the Kogi State House of Assembly, leading to the impeachment of the Speaker by five out of the 20 legislators, the elections of other five members having been nullified.

While the five lawmakers seemed to enjoy the confidence and support of the governor, the majority legislators cried foul, arguing that the impeachment did not meet the requirements of the law and that given the total number of lawmakers making up the Assembly, five was not enough number to form a quorum talk less of impeaching the speaker.

At the height of the political volcano, the National Assembly through the House of Representatives intervened to restore and preserve democracy from the wanton attack on its ideals and processes in Kogi House of Assembly. A fact-finding committee was sent to the state by the federal lawmakers.

After deliberations and interactions with the opposing camps, the House of Representatives took over the functions of the state legislature and directed the sealing off of the Assembly complex.

But not long after the decision was taken and directive carried out by the police, the meddlesome Malami mandated the then Inspector General of Police (IGP) to debar the Assembly and allow the favoured five lawmakers access to their place of work.

Worried by the development, the House of Representatives summoned both IGP and AGF to come and explain why they should flout the lawful orders of the legislature. While the IGP perfunctorily apologized, the AGF argued that he merely responded to the request for legal opinion sought by the police.

By this time the nation had taken sufficient notice of the AGF’s radical (rascally?) approach to the performance of his constitutional functions. To a large extent, Malami rekindled the public debate on the necessity or otherwise of separating the office of the Attorney General from that of the Minister of Justice.

Yet, before the dust raised by the Kogi Assembly interface with the House of Representatives could settle, the AGF dusted up a case of alleged forgery, earlier investigated by the police and authorized the prosecution of the two presiding officers of the Senate alongside the immediate past and incumbent clerks of the National Assembly.

Based on the latest gamble, most Nigerian began to worry that by the way he was going and at the rate he was raking up animosities between the executive and legislative arms, the cowboy chief law officer of the nation could thrash Nigeria’s democracy.

Many people worry that given the dictatorial powers allotted the presidency, the former CPC legal adviser, could as part of the alleged designs to entrench his former party or colonize APC, advise the president to declare a state of emergency in the country.

It was therefore to avoid a situation that could lead to the abolition of the legislature that the senate invited the AGF to come and tell parliament and Nigerians how he arrived at the decision to put the leadership of the National Assembly in the dock.

With unbecoming cockiness, the AGF snubbed the Senators and failed to show up around the NASS premises. After honouring the court and appearing in the dock, the senate again extended the invitation to the AGF and Minister of Justice, to come and reason together with the representatives of Nigerian citizens.
But, twice he was invited, twice he shunned the summons!

As if to add insult to injury, the emissary of the AGF went to the Senate to inform the distinguished senators that they lack powers to summon the chief law officer of the country, and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. And the line of offence was drawn. Senate wound up the public hearing leaving open some ominous signs of an impending clash of the two arms of government.  It was becoming evident that the young Malami, inebriated by the power of his office, was taking the lawmakers for a ride.

In fairness to the AGF, he may be guided by his understanding of the spirit and letters of the law, particularly the nation’s constitution, but what remains for him is to add the salt of morality and commonsense to his interpretations. If in the popular perception of the public, the law could be likened to an ass, it takes wisdom to avoid heaping too much burden on it.

Even cowboys respect their horses, knowing that he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. As such, whatever secret misgivings Malami might have against the configuration of his party, the Senate or Nigeria, he should thread with caution to preserve Nigeria’s hard won democracy. Or, would he like his principal to enter the Guinness book of records as the one who truncated democracy and the rule of law?