By Mohammed Bello Doka
Fear has many disguises. Sometimes it shouts. Sometimes it claps. Sometimes it pretends to be relief. But most often, it panics.
That panic was on full display the moment Abubakar Malami, SAN, decided to do the unthinkable in today’s Nigeria: speak plainly. Not in coded press releases. Not in air-conditioned English. But in Hausa, to ordinary people, about insecurity, governance failure, and the cost of silence. The result was instant convulsion in familiar places.
It wasn’t outrage that followed. It was anxiety.
Within hours, a letter appeared. An invitation, not an accusation. A request, not a warrant. No offence named. No facts stated. Just presence demanded—as if presence alone could shrink a man whose résumé refuses intimidation.
Then came the spectacle. The celebrating class emerged. Social media filled with those who had been waiting—not for truth, but for opportunity. They cheered an invitation as if it were a conviction. They distributed justice in emojis. They found joy not in accountability, but in the hope of humiliation.
By evening, reality arrived.
Malami walked out. Same day. Calm. Free. Uncharged. He called the engagement successful. He described the allegations as fabricated. He promised Nigerians updates. And just like that, the celebration collapsed under the weight of its own foolishness.
So the question insists on being asked: Who is afraid of Malami?
Certainly not a man who once stared down an $11 billion international fraud and won. The P&ID case was not gossip; it was war. Nigeria was weeks away from humiliation on a historic scale. It was Malami’s legal strategy that reopened sealed doors in London and exposed corruption so naked that a British judge had no choice but to tear the award apart. Billions saved. National dignity restored. That record has fingerprints, not hashtags.
Certainly not a man who recovered looted wealth from foreign vaults while others perfected shouting “anti-corruption” into microphones. Asset recovery is not motivational speaking; it is negotiation, endurance, credibility. Malami delivered.
And certainly not a man who, as Attorney-General, did not award contracts, did not sign procurement papers, did not control ministries’ spending. Law was his domain, not loot. His power was advisory, prosecutorial, defensive. His legacy sits in court rulings, not project plaques.
So again: who is afraid?
It is not Malami’s opponents who fear justice. They fear memory.
Memory remembers who brought them in. Who sponsored the journey. Who mentored the ambition. Who fought for their relevance when their names meant nothing. Memory has archived the videos where these same voices swore by God that no one had ever helped them like Malami did. Those videos still exist. Gratitude was once their religion.
Power cured them of it.
They climbed—using his shoulders—and then attempted the oldest trick in small politics: turn around and pretend the shoulders never existed. Betrayal, after all, is the currency of the insecure. Seneca warned long ago that “ingratitude is the vice of souls that have run out of excuses.”
So they rejoiced at the sound of a knock, forgetting a lesson the Qur’an delivers without apology:
“And they planned, and Allah planned. And Allah is the Best of planners.”
(Qur’an 8:30)
By daylight, the planners were quiet. The planners had run out of emojis. The planners were recalibrating. Because nothing is more humiliating than celebrating a fall that never happens.
Malami did not shout after his release. He did not threaten institutions. He did not cry persecution. He simply stood—still standing where many hoped he would be kneeling. That composure was the real insult to his detractors.
Because courage unsettles cowards. Because survival exposes intention. Because a man who walks out stronger is a reminder to those who sold loyalty cheaply that disappointment has a long queue.
This episode did not damage Malami. It clarified him. It reminded the public who has substance and who has noise. Who has records and who has reactions. Who has built lives and who has borrowed proximity.
So, one last time, with clarity and without mercy: Who is afraid of Malami?
Those who know that the ladder remembers.
Those who know that gratitude has receipts.
Those who know that betrayal feels brave—until consequences wake up.
And they always do.