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| Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala |
According to
a letter signed by Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, which was obtained by newsmen, the former
Finance minister signed off the transfer of the funds but requested then President Goodluck Jonathan to directly
demand accountability from the then National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo
Dasuki.
In her
immediate reaction, however, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala explained that only a part of
the fund recovered from late Abacha was spent on arms and not the entire fund.
Col. Dasuki,
alongside the former governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa, and founder of DAAR Communications, owners of
Africa Independent Television and Raypower Radio Network, Dr. Raymond Dokpesi, are being investigated for their roles in the
disbursement of $2.1 billion and N643 billion meant for the procurement of arms
to fight the raging insurgency in Nigeria’s north east region.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s
letter dated January 20, 2015, which was addressed to Jonathan, revealed that
the money was transferred following a January 12, 2015 request by the Office of
the NSA under Dasuki for funds for the procurement of arms and ammunition as
well as intelligence equipment.
The letter
read: “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
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).”
She added
that the letter was to seek Mr. Jonathan’s approval for the funds to be
disbursed to the ONSA.
The former
minister further explained that the money being transferred formed part of the
Federal Government Independent Revenue. According to her, attempt to link her
name to any misuse of these funds for any purpose other than security as far as
she understood it is totally false and cannot stand.
In a
statement signed by her Media Adviser, Paul C. Nwabuikwu, she explained her role in the disbursement of
the fund.
According to
her, “throughout 2014, there were public complaints by
the military hierarchy to President Goodluck Jonathan about the inadequacy of
funds to fight the anti-terror war in the North East, resulting in Boko Haram
making gains and even taking territories. A lot of the criticism was
directed at the Federal Ministry of Finance under Dr. Okonjo-Iweala which was
accused of not doing enough to find funds for the operations.
“In
fact, the ministry, on several occasions, had to call press conferences to
provide details of budgetary spending on the military, to show, against the
background of limited resources and other urgent national priorities, that it
was doing its best on funding security.
“It
was about this time that some new Abacha funds of about $322 million were
returned with another $700 million still expected to be returned. (This is not
to be confused with the Abacha funds returned in 2005-2006 under the Obasanjo
government whose use for developmental purposes was monitored by the World Bank
as earlier explained by Dr. Okonjo-Iweala).
“Former
President Jonathan set up a committee comprising the former Minister of
Justice, former NSA and the former Minister of Finance to determine how best to
use both the returned and expected funds for development.
“The
NSA made a case for using the returned funds for urgent security operations
since, he noted, there cannot be any development without peace and security.
Based on this, a decision was taken to deploy about $322 million for the
military operations, while the expected $700 million 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. But, 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 developmental 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.” (vanguard)
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