Weapons Found In My House Belong To Onsa – Dasuki

A former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) yesterday told the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja that weapons found in his house in 2015 belonged to the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).

This was just as Dasuki also told the ECOWAS court yesterday that his continual detention by the Federal Government since December 2015 is illegal. The position of Dasuki on the weapons was contained in a statement made before the Department of State Services (DSS) and tendered before the court.

Dasuki, who is standing trial over alleged illegal possession of weapon, said weapons were for the use of the security details attached to him as the NSA for protection purposes. A prosecution witness in the trial of Dasuki, Samuel Ogbu, who is an operative of DSS, read in the open court the statement made by Dasuki during his interrogation by DSS before he was charged to court.

However, under crossexamination by counsel to Dasuki, Ahmed Raji (SAN), the witness said that Dasuki, in his statement, confirmed that weapons were for the ONSA and for the protection of the NSA. The witness also said that Dasuki claimed in his written statement that the weapons were to be returned to the ONSA by the security details at the end of the day.

Ogbu had admitted that Dasuki, in the first paragraph of his statement, made it clear that the weapons belong to the ONSA and not his personal belonging. The witness further said he could not remember the date Dasuki left office as NSA, but however, insisted that the interrogation was conducted after he had left office.

Answering another question, the witness, who claimed to have spent 34 years in the service, admitted that the NSA is entitled to security details as the coordinator of activities for all security agencies in the country.

The operative claimed that the DSS did not issue the weapon to the former NSA, but admitted he would not know whether the weapons were issued to Dasuki by the military authority, especially the Nigerian Army. Earlier in his evidence in chief, the witness had claimed that the house of Dasuki was searched based on intelligence report and that some weapons, including powerful rifles, were recovered in his house.

He said that as a followup to the recovery, he was invited to participate in the interrogation of Dasuki to know the ownership of the weapons and for what purposes they were meant in the house. The witness claimed that the interrogation was freely conducted and fully recorded on video and that Dasuki’s statement was also recorded when it was being made voluntarily. The court later adjourned till today for further hearing.

In a related development, Dasuki again yesterday told the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice sitting in Abuja that the Federal Government has no legal or moral justification for his continued incarceration since December last year.