Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser, received an
extra-budgetary allocation of $2.1 billion from the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) within nine months after approvals by
former President Goodluck Jonathan, TheCable can report.
Dasuki is
currently being investigated by the federal government over the billions
of dollars released for the procurement of arms for counter-terrorism
operations under Jonathan.
Documents seen by TheCable showed the
breakdown of NNPC’s disbursements to the office of the NSA as follows:
$1 billion on March 27, 2014; $200 million on April 9, 2014; $600
million on May 5, 2014; and, same day, $200 million following a request
for $250 million.
The documents also showed that on January 12, 2015,
he got $100 million, bringing the total amount his office received from
the NNPC to $2.1 billion within the nine months.
All these were
outside the statutory budgetary allocations to security during the same
period, in addition to another $1 billion loan secured by the Jonathan
administration to fight Boko Haram.
President Muhammadu Buhari
recently ordered the arrest of Dasuki for awarding “fictitious
contracts” in excess of N300 billion while he was NSA.
It is
believed that the arms and ammunition were either not purchased at all
or that substandard ones were procured instead, reportedly leading to
the death of many Nigerian soldiers in the hands of the better-equipped
Boko Haram insurgents.
There were various media reports, both local
and foreign, quoting unnamed Nigerian soldiers complaining about
inadequate arms as well as poor welfare in the counter-terrorism war.
Thousands
of soldiers deserted the military and those who refused to fight were
court-martialled and jailed or sentenced to death.
But Dasuki has
denied any wrong doing, maintaining that there was no fraud involved in
the procurement process and that the military succeeded in chasing the
insurgents out of 22 local governments under his watch.
He also
said all the contracts were awarded with the approval of Jonathan, but
the former president swiftly denied giving such approvals.
TheCable
can report, however, that Jonathan approved all the disbursements by
NNPC, with his senior special assistant on administrative matters, Matt
Aikhionbere, writing the covering letters conveying presidential consent
to the corporation after the president had minuted on Dasuki’s
requests.
Jonathan further approved that the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) should give Dasuki N40 billion following another
extra-budgetary request.
This was after the removal of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as the central bank governor in 2014.
Dasuki
had written to the then acting governor, Sarah Alade, requesting for
N60 billion, but she did not act on the request, reportedly because the
president was not copied and there was no presidential approval.
Following
the appointment of Godwin Emefiele as governor in June 2014, Dasuki
re-presented his request but Emefiele too did not act on it because of
procedural concerns.
However, Dasuki sent another request, this
time copying Jonathan, who — TheCable understands — now sat the two men
together and instructed that the bank should give N40 billion to Dasuki
and another N20 billion to the Department of State Services (DSS),
although there was no prior request from the department.
It is
believed in security circles that the N20 billion went to the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), the former president’s party, apparently to
finance the 2015 electioneering.
There was a slight twist in the
story after the 2015 general election when a senator got wind of the N60
billion expenditure and tried to blackmail Emefiele, demanding N5
billion in order to keep it away from public scrutiny.
Emefiele reportedly resisted the pressure from the senator, insisting that he acted based on a presidential order.
The
senator is now a principal officer of the national assembly against the
wishes of Buhari, who was made aware of the blackmail in May before he
was sworn in as president.
TheCable could not confirm if Emefiele eventually paid anything to the senator.
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