Buhari Orders Arrest Of Dasuki, Others Over Fraud

Buhari Orders Arrest Of Dasuki, Others Over Fraud

A recenlty set up by the Office of the National Security Adviser a 13 man committe to audit the procurement of arms and equipment in the Armed Forces precented an interim report that unearthed several illicit and fraudulent financial transactions. 

After those findings were unweiled, the precidency has ordered the immediate arrest of former NSA, Sambo Dasuki, and other indicted persons.

While the committee which was inaugurated on 31 August 2015 is yet to complete its work on full audit of the procurement of arms and equipment in the Armed Forces and Defence sector from 2007 to date, its interim report has unearthed the following:

The committee has analyzed interventions from some organizations that provided funds to the Office of the National Security Adviser, Defence Headquarters, Army Headquarters Naval Headquarters and Nigerian Air Force Headquarters, both in local and foreign currencies.

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So far the total extra budgetary interventions articulated by the committee is over N640billion. The foreign currency component is to the tune of over $2million.

Buhari Orders Arrest Of Dasuki, Others Over Fraud

These amounts exclude grants from the State Governments and funds collected by the DSS and Police. It was observed that in spite of this huge financial intervention, very little was expended to support defense procurement.

Interestingly, it was noted that the amount of foreign currency spent on failed contracts was more than double the $1bn loan that the National Assembly approved for borrowing to fight the insurgency in the North East.

The committee also discovered that payments to the tune of over N3billion were made to a single company by the former NSA without documented evidence of contractual agreements or fulfilment of tax obligations to the FGN.

Further findings revealed that between March 2012 and March 2015, the erstwhile NSA, Lt Col MS Dasuki (rtd) awarded fictitious and phantom contracts to the tune of N2,219,188,609.50, $1,671,742,613.58 and €9,905,477.00. The contracts which were said to be for the purchase of 4 Alpha Jets, 12 helicopters, bombs and ammunition were not executed and the equipment were never supplied to the Nigerian Air Force, neither are they in its inventory.

It was discovered that the former NSA directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to transfer the sum of over $130million and over €9million to the accounts of Societe D’equipmente Internationaux in West Africa, United Kingdom and United States of America for un-ascertained purposes, without any contract documents to explain the transactions.

The findings made so far are extremely worrying considering that the interventions were granted within the same period that our troops fighting the insurgency in the North East were in desperate need of platforms, military equipment and ammunition. Had the funds siphoned to these non performing companies been properly used for the purpose they were meant for, thousands of needless Nigerian deaths would have been avoided.

In light of these findings, President Muhammadu Buhari has directed that the relevant organizations arrest and bring to book, all individuals who have been found complicit in these illegal and fraudulent acts.

On November 13, a court in Abuja again ordered the Department of State Security Services to leave the house of ex-NSA. Dasuki also had to cancel his Lufthansa flight to the United Kingdom when he received the news that the DSS had plans to re-arrest him at the airport on November 4.

Source: Legit.ng

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