Dasuki Didn’t Steal $2.2bn Arms Cas, Jonathan Insists

Dasuki Didn’t Steal $2.2bn Arms Cas, Jonathan Insists

Adeboye   23:04:00   No comments:

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has risen in defence of his ex-National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), who is standing trial over alleged diversion of $2.2 billion arms cash.
In what appeared his first categorical statement on the arrest and subsequent trial of Dasuki and other personalities allegedly connected to the $2.2 billion cash, Jonathan said it was “impossible” for his former NSA to have stolen the said amount, considering his administration’s huge spending in the procurement of warships, fighter jets, and other military equipment and hardware, to prosecute the war against Boko Haram.

The former President broke his silence in faraway United Kingdom (UK), where he delivered a lecture on “Youth Entrepreneurship”, at the prestigious Oxford Union.
Hear him: “They said the National Security Adviser (Dasuki) stole $2.2billion. I don’t believe somebody can just steal $2.2 billion.

“We bought warships, we bought aircraft, we bought lots of weapons for the army and so on and so forth and you are still saying 2.2 billion, so where did we get the money to buy all those things?
“Yes, there were some issues. Yes, there are still corruption issues but some of it were over blown. I’d say exaggerated and they give a very bad impression about our nation. You cannot say the national security adviser stole $2.2billion. It is not just possible.”

While recognising the fact that further comments may be subjudice, since the case was before the court, the former President said it was important to allow the judicial process run its full course.

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Dasuki Is A Threat To National Security, FG Tells ECOWAS Court

Dasuki Is A Threat To National Security, FG Tells ECOWAS Court

Adeboye   20:14:00   No comments:

The Federal Government on Thursday told the Economic Community of West African States that it would be dangerous to release the immediate National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), from custody because he constituted a threat to national security.

Dasuki was re-arrested on December 29, 2015 by the operatives of the Department of State Service shortly after he was released on bail from ‎Kuje Prisons, Abuja, with respect to his ongoing trial on three separate sets of charges.

The Federal Government on Thursday called two witnesses ‎to oppose a fundamental human rights enforcement suit filed before the ECOWAS Court by Dasuki seeking his release from the custody of the DSS.

Through its ‎witnesses and its lawyer, Mr. T. D Kabiru, who led the witnesses in evidence, the Federal Government said on Thursday that Dasuki was being held because he constituted threat to national security.

It added that the ex-NSA was also being held owing to his involvement in the over $2bn arms funds scam.

It also said given his pivotal role in the $2bn scam and the calibre of top politicians that had been fingered in the alleged fraud, Dasuki was also being kept in custody for his own safety.

It said with the quantum of arms and ammunition alleged to be illegally kept in the ex-NSA’s home in Abuja and recovered by security operatives, there was the general apprehension that he possessed more, which the state had yet to discover.

It argued the Dasuki’s detention was justified based on the intelligence and security report in the disposal of the nation’s security agencies, and that national security superseded individual’s security.

‎ The lawyer said, “The position of the defence, which is not controverted by the applicant, is that the arms and ammunition recovered during the search (at Dasuki’s home) are not the only arms and ammunition in the possession of the applicant.

“There is fear that he has more.

“There is intelligence report that some are yet to be recovered. That we fear he has more is a ground to hold him. There are ongoing investigations which are revealing fresh facts concerning him.

“The right of an individual cannot supersede the security of a country when there is intelligence report to suspect the conduct of the individual.”

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Weapons Found In My House Belong To Onsa – Dasuki

Weapons Found In My House Belong To Onsa – Dasuki

Adeboye   07:26:00   No comments:

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.

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New Militant Group Gives FG 7 Days To Release Kanu, Dasuki

New Militant Group Gives FG 7 Days To Release Kanu, Dasuki

Adeboye   20:02:00   No comments:

A new militant group, Red Egbesu Water Lions, has surfaced in the Niger Delta region.The new militant group in a statement by its Creek Network Coordinator, “General” Torunanawei Latei, said it was teaming up with the Niger Delta Avengers and Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.

“It issued the Federal Government a seven-day ultimatum to release Nnamdi Kanu, former National Security Adviser, NSA, Sambo Dasuki and direct EFCC to defreeze the bank accounts of ex-militant leader, Government Ekpemupol, alias Tompolo.


Threatening to shut down all oil exploration activities in the Niger Delta at the expiration of the ultimatum, the group also demanded “unconditional immediate payment to victims of the Bonga Oil Spill and Chevron gas explosion in Koluama, Bayelsa state.”

“It is extremely important to note that the engine room of the national interest is the executive obedience to court orders, protection and preservation of citizens’ constitutional liberties. Justification of executive disobedience to court orders as a protection of national interest is abominable. “This is a deliberate ploy to bend the law and suspend the 1999 Constitution. We ask, does President Muhammadu Buhari have any legal capacity to declare anyone as a criminal? Disobedience to court orders is an act of executive rascality in the country,” the group added.
Vanguard

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Dasuki Paid Me Monthly, Says Okupe

Dasuki Paid Me Monthly, Says Okupe

Adeboye   20:33:00   No comments:

A former Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe, has revealed that his office was funded monthly by the embattled former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.).

Okupe, who served under Jonathan from 2012 to 2015, said this on his official Twitter handle.

He, however, said he had nothing to do with the arms scam which cost the country over $15bn in stolen funds.

Okupe said, “I was not paid arms deal money. The NSA paid for the running of my office monthly from August 2012. Dasukigate was in 2014. I did not take part in the campaign.”

The former spokesman for Jonathan, however, received bashing from several of his followers online who wondered why his office should get security votes.

A Twitter use, Ojezs, asked, “You’re just implicating yourself. Is it the NSA office that employed you?”

Another user, Ayoola Ayodeji, wrote, “You probably mistake some of us for hungry people. A day will come when you won’t be able to sleep because poor people are outside your gate.”

In his response, Okupe wrote, “You guys are idiotic. You wait and pray for the innocent to be punished. It will not happen. You must think some of us are terrified.”

It had been reported in January that Okupe got at least N1.6bn off Dasuki in three shady cyber security contracts.

One of the contracts had instructions to hunt down unfriendly media websites with Distributed Denial of Service attacks.

It was believed to be a project conceived to shut down online media platforms perceived as friendly towards Muhammadu Buhari, the then presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2015 election.

The other contract was to intercept all optic fibre cables landing in Nigeria. The third was a passive mass and target GSM interception that had the ability to decrypt ciphers and operate undetected.

The contracts that were allegedly awarded Okupe’s cronies, reinforces claims that the former NSA merely doled out cash and contracts to cronies and political associates and violated procurement regulations in the process.

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Arms Deal: Again, FG Fails To Produce Dasuki In Court

Arms Deal: Again, FG Fails To Produce Dasuki In Court

Adeboye   07:35:00   No comments:

Again, the Federal Government, yesterday, failed to produce former National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd) before an Abuja High Court where he is standing trial over alleged diversion of N6 billion meant for the purchase of arms.

The Department of State Services (DSS) has held Dasuki in custody since December 2015. When the matter came up yesterday, prosecuting counsel, Oluwaleke Atolagbe informed the trial judge, Justice Baba Yusuf, that he had made serious efforts through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to contact the DSS to produce the first defendant (Dasuki) in court and regretted that as at the time the court was sitting, his efforts did not yield fruitful result.

The counsel informed the court that there was no indication that the former NSA would be brought to court for the trial, even though the witnesses are in court and that also Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) who was supposed to be the lead prosecution counsel was at the Court of Appeal for a different matter.

Atolagbe appealed that the matter be stood down pending the arrival of Jacobs in court to come and shed more light on the absence of Dasuki. However, counsel to one of the defendants, Salisu Shuaib, a former Director of Finance in the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), Akin Olujimi (SAN) said that the coming into court of Jacobs would be inconsequential in the absence of the first defendant (Dasuki). Olujimi told the court that the prosecution had failed to produce the defendant in court and ought to admit that and asked for adjournment.

He argued that it is settled in law that trial cannot go ahead in the absence of the defendant and prayed the court to grant adjournment to the prosecution to enable them take steps to produce Dasuki in court on the adjourned date. Olujimi also asked the court to issue a stern warning to the prosecution to be serious in the trial and to ensure that Dasuki is produced in court at all stages of the trial as demanded by law.

In his own submission, counsel to Aminu Baba- Kusa, a former Executive Director at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Solomon Umor (SAN) submitted that “ordinarily, the prosecution ought to apply for a bench warrant against Dasuki for failure to appear in court for trial, but noted that in the instant case, the prosecution would not do so because they are the one responsible for the absence of Dasuki because of his unwarranted detention.

In his ruling, Justice Yusuf said that that it was the responsibility of the prosecution to produce the defendant in court as required by law, but regretted that the prosecution has unfortunately abdicated this responsibility today as far as this case is concerned. The court, however, held that the conduct of the prosecution had been good in the past and consequently adjourned till May 23.

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