Nigeria’s leader says ex-official took $2B
Funds were meant to arm military to fight Islamic rebels
ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s leader on Tuesday ordered the arrest of the former president’s national security adviser for allegedly stealing more than $2 billion meant to purchase weapons for the military to fight Islamic militant Boko Haram rebels.
“It was observed that in spite of this huge financial intervention, very little was expended to support defense procurement. Thousands of needless Nigerian deaths would have been avoided” if the money had been properly spent, Femi Adesina, an adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, said in a statement.
It accuses Sambo Dasuki, a key adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, of awarding “phantom contracts” to buy 12 helicopters, four fighter jets, and bombs and ammunition worth $2 billion that never were supplied.
Dasuki also ordered the Central Bank to transfer $142.6 million to a company with accounts in the United States, the United Kingdom and in West Africa for unknown purposes and without contracts, Adesina said.
The State Security Service has kept Dasuki under house arrest for more than a week despite a Federal High Court order allowing him to travel abroad for medical care. The court had allowed Dasuki bail after he pleaded innocent to other charges of money-laundering involving more than $423,000 found in cash and illegal possession of arms seized at two of his homes. Dasuki has denied the charges of money laundering and illegal arms possession.
The State Security Service, an agency formerly under Dasuki’s control, said he refused to answer questions about arms deals.
Tuesday’s development follows an interim report by a presidential committee investigating arms procurement, part of the fight against Nigeria’s endemic corruption that Buhari has waged since taking office in May after defeating Jonathan in elections.
Dasuki, 60, had usurped the role of the Ministry of Defense in procuring weapons. He was called before a Senate committee last year to explain South Africa’s seizure of $9.3 million in cash from a private Nigerian jet that landed in Johannesburg and a $5.7 million bank transfer that South Africa blocked, saying it involved an illegal arms deal. Dasuki said the deals were legitimate.
Adesina says Buhari has also ordered the arrest of several others linked to the scandal.
“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 northeast were in desperate need of platforms, military equipment and ammunition,” Adesina said. Security agencies must “arrest and bring to book all individuals who have been found complicit in these illegal and fraudulent acts,” he said.