Chairman of ThisDay newspapers and president of
Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria
(NPAN) Nduka Obaigbena has written to EFCC on
allegations he received part of the controversial
arms deal money. In a letter yesterday, Obaigbena
said his company and NPAN didn’t know that the
N670million compensation they got from the office
of the National Security Adviser were from arms
purchase fund. Obaigbena disclosed this in his
reaction to EFCC on the payments his company
and the 12 other newspapers received from the
NSA in 2015. In a letter sent to EFCC, Obaigbena
said;
"When the ONSA (Office of the National
Security Adviser) said that they had approval
to pay us, but would rather not set a
precedent by paying THISDAY directly, we
nominated a member company of the
THISDAY Newspapers Group, called General
Hydrocarbons Ltd., to receive the payments
on behalf of the group of companies, given
that the assets of General Hydrocarbons Ltd
– mainly generators – were also destroyed
in the bombings;
“We did ask our insurance consortium to pay
compensation but they said we were not
covered for war and or terrorism risk. Until
that time, we never knew we needed war or
terrorism insurance in Nigeria as the
government had not officially declared war.
With the power of hindsight, we now know
better.
"We simply used the compensation funds to
defray some 30 per cent of the N1.7 billion
we already paid to 3rd party printers for
services in lieu of the Abuja press, while we
went to our banks for refinancing printing
presses, computer-to-plate and other
facilities.”
"We never participated in any arms purchase
in any shape or form and only demanded
compensation for a horrendous terrorist act
against us. In the same way, the United
Nations and others who may have received
some compensation could not have known
the line budget items for the funds being
used for the reconstruction of the UN Abuja
buildings. Even the Nigerian Guild of Editors,
which may have received donations for their
secretariat from the ONSA, could not have
known which subhead it was paid from. We
simply cannot know or be expected to
speculate which line item the spending was
made from by the ONSA. There is simply no
nexus between payments made for
compensation, to us victims of terrorism as
well as to newspapers in compensation for
an unprovoked attack on free speech, and
any arms purchase budget'
We do not deserve further trauma because
some official(s), outside of our control, may
or may not have followed due process. All
victims of terrorist attack deserve a fair and
just compensation. The fact that we have
received some remedy should be reason to
accelerate compensation for all victims of
Boko Haram attacks across Nigeria however
big or small,” he said.



Source- Linda Sindodo

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