The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has revealed that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the publishing of laws of the Federation of Nigeria.
According to Malami, a South African company will handle the publication periodically.
He said, “As you are aware, there was a second extraordinary meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) that was held on Tuesday, May 23, 2023.
“Three FEC memos were presented by the Office of the Attorney General for the Council and the three memos were taken, deliberated upon and approved.
“The first memo that was taken was a memo to the regularisation of the Public Private Partnership arrangement between the Federal Ministry of Justice and Lexis of South Africa.
“And it has to do with the publication of the laws of the Federation of Nigeria and all materials of the law. This is about the publication of the compendium of laws of the Federation.
“In 2003 and 2005, there was an agreement entered into between the Ministry of Justice and a company in South Africa, which contract has to do with the continuous publication of the laws of Nigeria having been compiled as a book for 15 years.
“Now, that contract was meant to be a rollover contract, so that by way of a sustainable arrangement, we will be having a compendium of laws of the federation published periodically.”
According to the minister, with the council’s approval, the country will have a continuous publication of the laws of the Federation of Nigeria, in the form of a book, and in a way, and manner that will conform to the quality and indeed international best practices associated with the quality.
Malami also disclosed that the Council approved the standardisation of the use of discretion by lawyers, so as to protect the interest of the nation in international cases.
According to him, the new move will help check the insertion of clauses that are injurious to Nigeria in international agreements or contracts.
“The Second memo is a memo relating to the operationalisation and deployment of the government’s contracts administration system.
“When we came into office, we inherited an award liability of around $10 billion against the Nigerian government arising from the purported breach of a contract, which is popularly known as P&ID.
“And then our assessment of the contract is the fact that a lot of discretion on the part of the lawyers responsible for vetting government contracts was underrated, which discretion now resulted in some level of overlooking of the major clauses that will have at the end of the day, provided some level of protection to the interest of the Nigerian government.
“So with that unfortunate situation in mind, the need have arisen for us to consider the best way that we can minimise the level of discretion being exercised by lawyers, and bring about standardisation in line with international best practices.”
