Dasuki gave me N100m on Jonathan’s instruction — Okupe
Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s aide, Doyin Okupe, has revealed that a former National Security Adviser, retired Col. Sambo Dasuki, gave him N100 million on Jonathan’s instruction.
Okupe, who was Jonathan’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs from 2012 to 2015, disclosed this in a statement while reacting to his arrest and interrogation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He said he had told the EFCC that he was receiving N10million from Dasuki every month to pay his (Okupe’s) workers’ salaries and run a weekly programme on the Nigerian Television Authority.
Okupe stated: “The initial N50m was approved by the president to be paid to me from his security vote. N10m was to furnish my rented living apartment and another N10m for my office. The balance N30m was approved as take-off grant for my office. The N10m I received from the Office of the National Security Adviser monthly was to run my office, pay salaries of staff, including overheads, pay expenses for our numerous press conferences, pay for publications in newspapers, magazines, local and foreign, television programs, bulletins, and media consultants who assist and facilitate our work. I had about 23 staff, 11 were graduates out of which five were masters degree holders. Details were submitted to the EFCC.
“The second N50m was approved again by Mr President when I reported to him that the monthly allowance had been cut from N10m to N5m and that I was no longer in a position to keep running a one hour NTA network program called INSIGHT which was aired 9-10am every Friday and some other days of the week. We paid NTA about N1.2m monthly for airtime. Two presenters were paid N600,000 monthly. We paid for tapes and editing per program. Besides, we also paid honorarium to guests either directly or in form of hotel bills for those outside Abuja, or transportation. This cost averagely N500,000 weekly or about N2m monthly. All in all we spent about N4m monthly on the program. Mr President promised to help with the expenses. About a few months later when we had incurred some debts, the NSA sent me a sum of N50m which was to cover the cost of the program for 12 months.”
The ex-presidential aide lamented that without his clearance or authorisation, the EFCC revealed his health status to the media.
“This is a sad development and a definite breach of the confidence I reposed in the commission as an institution of government. I was born with sinus bradycadia, a nondisease based slowness of the heart. It precluded me from vigorous exercise from childhood, but I’ve, by God’s grace, been able to live a normal and active life. With age, the slowness grew worse and life threatening. I sought medical help and went through a procedure at the Arrhythmia cardiac Research Centre in Atlanta where this defect was corrected. It’s just a year ago and I’m still under satellite monitor from the USA. This is what I revealed to the EFCC and they made it a public issue,” he said.