EFCC chair, Ola Olukoyede, says he broods no animosity against former attorney general of the federation, Abubakar Malami, who is facing N8.7 billion money laundering charges at the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court.

“There’s nothing personal about it,” said Mr Olukoyede.

Mr Olukoyede rebuffed Mr Malami’s assertion that he was being “persecuted“.

Mr Malami asked Mr Olukoyede to recuse himself from the investigation, claiming that the EFCC boss has a grudge against him for the 2020 findings of the Ayo Salami judicial commission of inquiry, which indicted Mr Olukoyede.

“I want to tell Nigerians that the investigation of this man predated me in office, and a lot of people don’t know that,” Mr Olukoyede said on Channels TV Sunday evening. “What I did was to ensure that the investigation was carried out in a very professional and thorough manner.”

Mr Malami said the investigations only came to light and were taken to court after the anti-graft commission established a “water-tight” case against the former justice minister.

“He has been under investigation for almost two and a half years. The file was opened not even under me. I inherited it, and for the past over two years I’ve been in office, we’ve been painstakingly carrying out the investigation, trying to establish some of these offenses and all of that,” the EFCC boss explained. “Not until I was convinced that we had a watertight case and Nigerians are witnesses, so there’s nothing personal about it. I don’t understand the issue of persecution and all of that.”

Mr Olukoyede added, “Those who claimed I was indicted by the Justice Ayo Salami panel, the onus is on them to publish the report for people to see.”

Meanwhile, the court has ordered the interim forfeiture of 57 properties suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities linked to Mr Malami.

On January 7, Justice Emeka Nwite of the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court granted N500 million bail each to Mr Malami, his wife, Bashir Asabe, and son Abdulaziz, facing 16 counts of money laundering charges. The trio pleaded not guilty to the charges.