Former Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo Iweala
yesterday said she had paid former National Security
Adviser to the President, Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd)
$322m (about N63billion) from recovered Abacha funds
to finance military operations.
She was reacting to online media reports that accused
her of illegally diverting the Abacha funds to the office
of the former NSA. The money was returned to Nigeria
in January 2015.
The statement signed by her Media Adviser, Paul C
Nwabuikwu, said the attempt to link the former
minister to any misuse of the funds for any purpose
other than security was baseless.
She explained that based on a request by Dasuki,
former president Goodluck Jonathan set up a
committee comprising of the former Minister of
Justice, the former NSA and herself to determine how
best to use both the returned and expected funds for
development.
Okonjo-Iweala said when the committee met, the NSA
made a case for using the returned funds for urgent
security operations arguing that there could not be any
development without peace and security.
“Based on this, a decision was taken to deploy about
$322m for the military operations, while the expected
$700m would be applied for development programmes
as originally conceived.
“Following the discussions and based on the urgency of
the NSA’s memo, Dr Okonjo-Iweala requested the
president to approve the transfer of the requested
amount to the NSA’s office for the specified purposes,”
the minister said.
However, Okonjo-Iweala said as captured in the memo,
she insisted on three conditions: A. only a part, not the
entire Abacha funds, would be spent on the arms; the
rest would be invested in development projects as
originally conceived B. the money was to be treated as
borrowed funds which would be paid back as soon as
possible C. the NSA’s office was to account for the
spending to the president who was the Commander in
Chief, given the fact that the Minister of Finance is not
part of the security architecture and does not
participate in the security council.
Mrs Okonjo-Iweala’s memo to the president, seen by
PREMIUM TIMES, showed that 50 per cent of the
recently recovered Abacha loot was allotted for “urgent
security need” such as the procurement of arms and
ammunition while the other half was set aside to be
used for development purposes.
The letter, dated January 20, 2015, which was
addressed to Mr Jonathan, revealed that the money
was transferred following a January 12, 2015 request
by the office of the NSA under Mr Dasuki for funds for
the procurement of arms and ammunition as well as
intelligence equipment.
“Please find a request by the National Security Adviser
(NSA) for the transfer of $300 million and £5.5 million
of the recovered Abacha funds to an ONSA [Office of
the National Security Adviser] operations account,” the
letter read.
“The NSA has explained that this is to enable the
purchase of ammunition, security, and other
intelligence equipment for the security agencies in
order to enable them fully confront the ongoing Boko
Haram threat.
“His request is sequel to the meeting you chaired with
the committee on the use of recovered funds where
the decision was made that recovered Abacha funds
would be split 50-50 between urgent security needs to
confront Boko Haram and development need (including
a portion for the Future Generations window of the
Sovereign Wealth Fund),” Mrs Okojo-Iweala wrote.
The former NSA, Dasuki is currently on trial in
connection with $2.1 billion arms scam. He is being
accused of spending a total of N643 billion in extra-
budgetary expenditure.
Also arrested for the alleged fraud are former Sokoto
state governor Attahiru Bafarawa and Chairman Africa
Independent Television (AIT) Raymond Dokpesi.
Both Bafarawa and Dokopesi are said have been paid
N4.6 billion and N2.1 billion respectively for unstated
purposes.

http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/okonjo-iweala-i-paid-dasuki-322m-from-abacha-fund/123639.html

DASUKI >NSA>PDP CASHIER>MONEY MACHINE

The story is not different from what the online media reported.

How will I not keep believing online media?

No wonder the corrupt Senate led by Saraki are hell bent on muzzling online media. They will fail like the draconian Decree 10 of the military govt.