BREAKING NEWS, Featured, Politics
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Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser and some former governors as well as minister have been at headquarters of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, answering questions on what they know on the alleged $2 billion arms contracts scam
| By Olu Ojewale | Dec 14, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT |
SAMBO Dasuki, a retired colonel and former national security adviser, NSA, must be rueing his decision to serve in the past administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan. Since Jonathan left office on May 29, this year, life has been on a downward spiral for Dasuki, who seems to have been swimming in troubled waters. The retired army officer has been accused of many things including harbouring illegal weapons in his house, money laundering and corrupt enrichment, among others. Recently, the former NSA has also been in a battle wit with the federal government over his proposed travel abroad for medical treatment for an undisclosed ailment.
After about one month of house arrest, Dasuki was formally arrested by operatives of the Department of State Security Service, DSS, on Tuesday, December 1. He is being asked to explain how $2 billion meant for arms for the Nigerian military developed wings and flew out of government coffers.
Since his arrest, Dasuki has been handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, where many other Nigerian dignitaries have joined him on the same issue. Prominent among them are former Governor Attahiru Bafarawa of Sokoto State; Bashir Yuguda, former minister of state for Finance and Raymond Dokpesi, founder of Daar Communications Plc, owners of Ray Power and African Independent Television, AIT.
So far, no fewer than 20 persons have been implicated by Dasuki. Some of them have either been questioned or arrested by law enforcement agents in relation to the arms purchase scandal. A source in the EFCC revealed that some of the detained suspects had provided useful information after almost all of them initially exhibited resistance.
Latest among those who have been fingered in the scandal are Bode George, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Peter Odili, a former governor of Rivers State. They allegedly received about N100 million each from Dasuki. At press time, the George and Odili had not been invited by the anti-graft agency. Sources said they would be invited soon.
But in a prompt reaction, George on Thursday, December 3, said he never met Dasuki let alone take money from him. A statement yesterday by Tejumade Akitoye – Rhodes, of Lagos Collectives on behalf of George, said it was wrong to link him with collection of cash from the ex-NSA’s office. “For the record, Chief Bode George did not collect a farthing from Dasuki or anybody else whatsoever. He has never even set eyes on the former NSA throughout his tenure in office talk less of collecting money from him. Dasuki, of course, is very much alive to corroborate this position,” the statement said.
Whatever, it was learnt that Dasuki initially did not want to co-operate with the EFCC until he was confronted with a statement written by Shuaibu Salisu, a former director of finance at the office of the NSA, ONSA, who had spilled the beans on how the money in question was spent. “Thereafter, Dasuki decided to open a can of worms. He gave a long list of the PDP chieftains who collected money from the office of the NSA. He mentioned the names of a former deputy national chairman of the PDP, ex-governors and ex-ministers and many others,” a source at the EFCC said.
The commission was also said to be asking many question about how the money came about and whether it was budgeted for. “Our investigators have isolated these areas of probe: Were the funds budgeted for? If not, what informed extra-budgetary expenses? How much was actually voted for arms procurement? How were the funds sourced? Who or which agency awarded all the contracts? Who were the contractors? Was there any evidence of delivery of equipment? What will make any minister to run to the ONSA for funds?
“These are the areas our detectives have been mandated to look at,” the source was quoted as saying.
Contrary to reports making the rounds that Dasuki had implicated some of the prominent persons being quizzed by the EFCC, the former NSA said this was untrue. Speaking through Ahmed Raji, SAN, his counsel, on Thursday, December 3, Dasuki said he never made any implicating statement or named anyone to EFCC and wondered where the authors got their information from.
“I was with Dasuki yesterday and wish to make categorical statement that my client never made any statement of such nature or named anybody or group in any statement,” PR Nigeria quoted Raji as saying.
“Quote me anywhere, Dasuki has not done anything like that. It is absolutely untrue. It is the figment of the imagination of the authors aimed at creating falsehood for reasons best known to them and Nigerians should disregard them.
“They are just out to scandalise the man, bring his image and character into disrepute so that his friends and well wishers can run away from him. They want him deserted and that will fail.”
Nevertheless, many of the suspects were said to have admitted collecting huge sums of money from the ONSA when Dasuki was in charge. One of them is Dokpesi, who admitted that he received N2.1billion from the ONSA, but the cash payment was for publicity.
A statement issued yesterday by the management of the DAAR Communications Plc, said that Dokpesi who was the guest of the EFCC, told the commission that the N2.1 billion he collected from the former NSA, was payment “for publicity and media political campaigns during the 2015 General Elections.” And that the media mogul “made his statement on the various media exposures and campaign transactions which were dutifully carried out based essentially on contractual obligations/relationship.”
As at press time, there were indications that the anti-graft commission would extend its probe to the seizure of $9million cash by South Africa and quiz all those involved in the botched deal. An Israeli suspect implicated in the deal was reported to have left country when he got a wind that the EFCC was on his trail.
In the meantime, many of those arrested in the case have been given bail while others may soon appear in court on the matter.
President Buhari had on Tuesday, November 17, ordered the arrest of Dasuki, for allegedly siphoning billions of dollars earmarked for arms purchases. The president’s order was precipitated on the report of a 13-man committee set up on August 31, to audit the procurement of arms and equipment in the Armed Forces and Defence sector from 2007 to date.
Initial report of the committee alleged that Dasuki expended $2,193,815,000.83 on arms, a figure that did not include grants received by the police and the DSS, from state governments.
As expected since the arrests of Dasuki and others in connection with the alleged criminal diversion of funds, reactions have been resonating throughout the country.
Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State in a statement questioned the role played by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former minister of Finance and coordinating minister of the Economy, in the contentious $2.1 billion arms procurement. He wondered whether she approved the disbursement of the said money. Oshiomhole also wondered how such huge sums of money could have made its way out of the nation’s coffers if it was not approved by the National Assembly.
Reacting to the governor’s statement Okonjo-Iweala on Thursday, December 3, requested the federal government to call him to order over what she called efforts to link her name to the alleged $2.1 billion arms issue.
A statement from Paul Nwabuikwu, her media adviser, said Okonjo-Iweala “has absolutely nothing to do with the issue.” The former minister described as “an abuse of public office, the judicial process and her human rights for Governor Oshiomhole whom she stopped from taking a highly suspicious N15 billion loan to make false allegations against her while hiding behind the constitutional immunity granted state governors.”
On his part, Femi Fani-Kayode, former spokesperson of the Goodluck Jonathan Presidential Campaign Organisation, saw the arrest of Dasuki and his co-travellers as a witch-hunt. Fani-Kayode, who took a swipe at the President Muhammadu Buhari government, described it as unforgiving, petty, unjust, vindictive in nature and above all, not God fearing.
According to him, rather than terrorise the people of Nigeria, he asked the president to save what he termed his terror waves and gestapo tactics for Boko Haram.
In a statement he made available to journalists on Wednesday, December 2, in Abuja, Fani-Kayode accused the Buhari government of playing a dangerous game of Russian roulette with a loaded gun, warning that if it is not properly handled as in being careful in the handling of the affairs of the country, the gun would soon explode
His statement said in part: “If they have any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Dasuki or anyone else then they should present it in court rather than on the pages of newspapers and if they wish to charge anyone they should go ahead and do so in a lawful, proper and civilised manner. The era of witch-hunting and demonising people and attempting to cower and subdue them into silence are long over.
“Those of us that oppose this government can never be intimidated or silenced because God is with us. If we could stand up against military dictatorship in the past, we can stand up against civilian dictatorship today. Anything outside of prosecuting people in a lawful manner and according to due process is barbaric and unacceptable and our President needs to be reminded that he is not running a military government but a democratic one.
“This attempt to silence us with guns, bullets, threats of arrest and prosecution, violence, storming of homes, locking up of relatives, kidnapping of citizens, shameful lies, baseless allegations, demonisation in the media and disinformation will not work.”
Indeed, many Nigerians have expressed divergent views on the way the EFCC has been doing its work with attendant publicity. They would prefer that the cases are investigated privately without any media hype. One of those in support of this view is Tunde Arogunmati, a public commentator, who wants the fight against corruption to be devoid of party politics.
Similarly, Onyekachi Ubani, a human rights lawyer, said he wondered why the ONSA was turned into party office to pay for the PDP advert placements and also pay political members. Ubani, however, appealed to the anti-graft agencies to be thorough in their investigations before accusing anyone of any crime. He also asked for speedy dispensation of justice in the matter. “We cannot really say what happened or how the monies they claimed to have collected were actually meant for or used. But I believe when the matter gets to court, all the facts will come to light,” Ubani.
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