The Presidency has described the regime of President Goodluck Jonathan as a discredited one from which President Muhammadu Buhari could not have accepted what it called ‘questionable monetary gift.’
In a statement today denying the media reports especially on internet-based media, that Buhari received $300,000.00 and up to five armoured SUVs from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) in the aftermath of the attack on his convoy in Kaduna last year, the Presidency said that it is untrue.
The statement which was signed by the special adviser to the President on media and publicity, Femi Adesina denied deny that President Buhari received $300,000.00 or any monetary compensation whatsoever from the Jonathan Presidency or any of its officials, in the aftermath of that attack, or at any other time since then.
“While it is true that one armoured SUV and one untreated SUV were sent to the President in the aftermath of the attack, the vehicles were in keeping with his entitlements as a former Head of State under the Remuneration of Former Presidents and Heads of State (And other Ancillary Matters) Decree of 1999.
“Section 3, Sub Section 1 of that Decree provides that three vehicles will be provided for former heads of state and replaced every four years.
“There was therefore nothing untoward, illegal or tending to corruption in former Head of State Buhari and Presidential aspirant, as he then was, receiving vehicles, to which he was statutorily entitled, from the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“President Buhari had in keeping with his austere, spartan and frugal disposition shunned most of his entitlements as a former Head of State, but was prevailed upon by his supporters to accept the two vehicles for his personal safety in the aftermath of the dastardly attempt to assassinate him.
“It is preposterous to think that the President will allow his acclaimed reputation of honesty and incorruptibility to be tarnished by accepting a questionable monetary compensation from a discredited regime.” [myad]
A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja has sent the acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus packing, giving him 14 days within which to vacate the office. The order was handed down today following a suit filed by the former Special Adviser on Political Matters to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak. The court said that based on the arguments preferred by Gulak, Secondus is occupying the position of the Acting National Chairman of the party illegally even as Secondus said that he would appeal the judgment. Justice Hussein Baba in his judgment held that the position of the Acting National Chairman of the party is zoned to the North East and therefore cannot be occupied by Secondus, who is from the South South. His counsel, Paul Isaiah, said: “we are going to appeal this judgment. “Apart from the appeal, we are also going to file a stay of execution of the judgment because the National Convention of the party is in March next year.” In the suit, Gulak said that by the provision of the PDP constitution and its zoning principle, he was the proper person to replace the former Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Muazu, who hailed from the North East geopolitical zone. [myad]
Amnesty International in Nigeria has called for urgent investigation into the alleged killing of Shiite members by the Nigeria military in Zaria, Kaduna state, at the weekend.
In a statement today, the Director of the Amnesty International in Nigeria, M.K. Ibrahim said that anyone found responsible for unlawful killings in the Zaria violence must be brought to justice.
“An impartial investigation is urgently needed into these killings. Anyone responsible for unlawful killings should be brought to justice. Those in detention must be granted access to medical care as a matter of urgency and either charged with a recognizable criminal offence or released.
“Whilst the final death toll is unclear, there is no doubt that there has been a substantial loss of life at the hands of the military.
“Firearms should only be used as a last resort, if strictly unavoidable in order to protect life. It is crucial that the authorities refrain from using excessive force and ensure that anyone responsible for unlawful killings is brought to justice in fair trials.”
Security forces arrested many members of the sect, including the leader of the group, Ibraheem Zakzaky, who was picked up at his residence on Sunday morning and has remained in detention. It is unclear if he has access to a lawyer. Reports suggest that the dead and injured were taken to the military hospital and to the university teaching hospital.
This is even as the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has set up a panel to probe the clash.
The panel, headed by a director at the commission, Tony Ojukwu, was set up following a petition by the Army alleging that members of the sect attempted to assassinate Tukur Buratai, its chief of staff, along Sokoto road in Zaria, Kaduna state, last Saturday.
According to the Army, members of the sect on the orders of their leader, Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, attacked the convoy of Buratai, who was on his way to pay homage to the Emir of Zazzau and to attend the passing out parade of some new recruits in the state.
“The sect numbering hundreds carrying dangerous weapons, barricaded the roads with bonfires, heavy stones and tyres. They refused all entreaties to disperse and then started firing and pelting the convoy with dangerous objects. The barricade was obviously a deliberate attempt to assassinate the chief of army staff and members of his entourage while on a legitimate official assignment as special guest of honour at the passing out parade which has earlier been widely publicized,” Sani Usman, spokesman of the army, had said in a statement.
“The troops responsible for the safety and security of the chief of army staff on hearing explosion and firing were left with no choice than to defend him and the convoy at all cost as well as open up the barricaded road for law abiding citizens. This is in line with the Nigerian army rules of engagement and code of conduct. This kind of behaviour will not be tolerated from any individual or groups and should not be allowed to repeat itself.”
But the sect denied making an attempt on the life of the chief of army staff, alleging that the army shot its unarmed members killing scores of them. [myad]
The President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, has indicted his colleagues in the National Assembly over the arms deal scandal, involving the former National Security Adviser (NSA), retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki to the tune of $2.1 billion.
According to Senator Saraki, the oversight function of lawmakers is under question in a situation where such huge amount of money meant for arms was allegedly diverted and or mismanaged.
The Senate president, who spoke on a motion tagged: “Abandonment of projects: A menace to Development in Nigeria,” stressed that standing committees in the National Assembly have failed in their responsibilities and that the 8th Senate, which he heads, must make a difference.
“I want us to ensure that our committees do proper oversight. The leadership must also do its own part.
“Even the present prosecution of the former National Security Adviser was due to lack of proper oversight.”
During the debate on the motion, Senator Suleiman Nazir (Bauchi North) observed that public infrastructure account for most of the abandoned projects and that those projects were awarded based on considerations given to friends even when they do not possess the needed technical knowledge.
“The repeated practice in Nigeria is that once new people are in office, the policies or programmes of the previous administration are abandoned. This unwillingness to ensure policy continuity is the root cause of abandonment of projects.
“The desire for ego credit taking, rather than genuine service delivery was behind the drive for new projects and abandoning of old ones.
“Factors such as poor planning, inadequate budgeting, delay in releasing project funds, which lead to project execution delay, increased contract cost variation and contract splitting in order to give jobs to friends are the major reasons for project abandonment.”
Nazif revealed that about 11,886 projects, with an estimated cost of N7.78 trillion, have been abandoned in the country.
The lawmaker accused the past administration of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan of embarking on a weekly charade of awarding new contracts or re-awarding old ones at higher prices during its weekly Federal Executive Council ( FEC) meetings.
Senator Gbenga Ashafa (Lagos East) said the decision of the All Progressives Congress government for zero percent budget system was aimed at eliminating the practice of project abandonment and to curtail fund misappropriation.
The Senate urged the Federal Government to set up a project performance and monitoring task force to punish contractors who collect mobilization and disappear from site. [myad]
Former National Security Adviser (NSA), retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki is now battling for bail, even as Justice Peter Affem of the Federal Capital Territory’s High Court in Abuja fixed tomorrow, Wednesday, to decide whether to grant such bail or not.
Dasuki, who has been ordered by the court to be remanded in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had today, along with the former Minister of State for Finance, Bashir Yuguda; former Governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa, and three others denied allegations of diversions, misappropriation and breech of public trust in respect of N19.4 billion criminal charges brought against them by the Federal Government.
The six accused persons are facing a 22 count charge before Justice Peter Affem.
Counsel to the Federal Government, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), requested for an adjournment of the trial till next year to enable him assemble his witnesses even as counsel to Dasuki, Ahmed Raji (SAN), raised the issue of bail for the accused persons, adding that motions for their bail have been filed and served on the prosecution.
Jacobs confirmed that he has been served with the application for bail of all the accused persons and with the consent of all the lawyers in the trial, Justice Affem adjourned hearing in the bail application until Wednesday.
This was even as another High Court in the FCT presided by Justice Sani Yusuf, had today, adjourned ruling on bail for Dasuki to Friday.
Dasuki, who was arraigned before Justice Yusuf alongside a former Director of Finance in the Office of the NSA, Shuaibu Salisu; a former Group General Manager of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Aminu Kura; and two firms, Acacia Holdings Limited and Reliance Reference Hospital, had on Monday filed for bail after pleading not guilty to the 19-count charge preferred against them by the EFCC.
After over two hours of arguments and counter-arguments from counsel to both parties, Yusuf adjourned bail ruling to Friday. [myad]
From left: Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika; Minister of Transportation, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi and Acting Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Mr. Haruna Baba Jauro, during the facility visit by the Ministerial delegation to NIMASA Resource Centre at Kirikiri, Lagos… on Monday. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed satisfaction that Boko Haram has successfully been separated from Islamic religion as a cover for the sacrilegious mayhem its members have visited on the psyche of Nigeria.
This is even as he asked religious leaders in Nigeria to do more in exposing the hypocrisy of the sect, whose members, he emphasized, have been stripped of all of the religious colouration and pretensions.
President Buhari who spoke when he received Ecuador’s new Ambassador to Nigeria, Leopoldo Rovayo Verdesoto at the Presidential Villa, Abuja insisted that the group has since been fully exposed as vicious terrorists, devoid of any moral or philosophical direction.
He recalled that a lot had already been done to properly expose Boko Haram as a ruthless, destructive and misguided terrorist group, adding: “what we have succeeded in doing is to separate terrorism from religion. The initial attraction for recruitments was religion. But now, people cannot relate with their relevance anymore and they are only associated with the destruction of lives and properties.
“If your life does not mean anything to you, other peoples’ lives will not mean anything to you as well. And people are beginning to see that Boko Haram is just about destruction and nothing else.”
President Buhari said that his administration will continue to prioritize diversification and other measures to help the Nigerian economy withstand the shock of falling crude oil prices.
The Ecuador’s new Ambassador was at the Presidential Villa to present his letter of credence.
The new Ambassador of Zambia, Dr. Solomon Jere and the new Ambassador of Colombia, Ms. Claudia Turbay Quintereo also presented their letters of credence to the President who wished them successful tenures in Nigeria. [myad]
Former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and currently the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II has described as strange story, allegation that he donated the sum of N40bn in cash to the Office of the former National Security Adviser (ONSA), during his tenure as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
“I do not know where they are getting these strange stories. I was removed from the CBN in February 2014, and to the best of my knowledge, the EFCC is probing disbursements allegedly made in late 2014 and early 2015 before the general elections, if indeed they happened.
Sanusi, who spoke to The Cable yesterday said: “This is completely untrue. In the first place, I understand the laws of money laundering. And it is a criminal offence. The central bank is the chief regulator charged with ensuring we put an end to money laundering.
“This is partly why we started our cashless Nigeria project and why I started the BVN project. I would never authorise that amount of cash to be moved to the Office of the NSA or to anyone even if it was in their account.”
The former CBN governor said that he was not aware that officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), are considering questioning him over the alleged disbursements even as he said that he found it difficult to believe that “this could happen in the CBN that I know. But we have to wait and see what the investigations come out with. Certainly whoever is linking me to this did not even bother to look at the dates of the alleged transactions. I know nothing about them, period.”
Sanusi said all interventions projects made by the CBN, while he was the head of the apex bank, were under its Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, budgets.
“We never gave cash to anybody. If we did we disclosed it in published accounts under CSR. Our interventions, be this to educational institutions or security services, took the form of clearly identified projects or specified procurement, done through well laid-down procedures, including competitive bidding, award of contracts, and collection of no-objection certificate from the due process office. We did not give cash to anybody.
“The total amount disbursed by the CBN on capital projects in my five years was N55 billion. And this included contracts for CBN branches and our CSR interventions mainly in the universities and secondary schools. How can anyone suggest that we gave N40 billion to ONSA?” [myad]
“You want to know how I escaped? It was by the will of God that I was able to escape from that place.
“I think NTA was there and they aired the clip. It was very clear. They were violent. Definitely this is very clear. The clips are there. That was what happened.”
These were the exact words of the Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Tukur Buratai, when he gave account of how he escaped death in the hands of suspected members of Shi’ite Islamic sect who attacked his convoy over the weekend in Zaria, Kaduna State.
Buratai spoke to newsmen shortly after appearing alongside other service chiefs before the Senate Committee on Defence in the National Assembly Complex, Abuja.
Burutai said that his convoy was attacked despite pleas by a detachment of soldiers for the sect members to remove the blockade they mounted on the highway.
According to him, in an attempt to force their way through despite refusal of the sect members to grant them passage, the soldiers allegedly opened fire on Shiite members leading to the loss of lives. He said that the Shi’ite Islamic sect members were violent in their attack.
The army chief who called on Nigerians to be law abiding, warned however that “nobody should take the law into his hands.”
This is coming on the heels of claims by the Shiite group alleging that the army killed innocent and unarmed members of the movement at sight, all in the process of instigating uninformed members of the public against the group.
The group alleged that the Army killed about hundreds of its members following the clash with Buratai’s convoy. [myad]
The Federal Government is believed to be currently gathering details on the alleged shady circumstances through which it was ripped off in a security contract awarded to ZTEL Corporation of China in the sum of $470 Million.
It was gathered that the contract was agreed on in 2010 between the Federal Government and ZTEL for the supply and installation of 1,000 units of solar-powered Closed-Circuit Television Cameras (CCTC) in each of the two major cities of Abuja and Lagos among other technical services.
The contract became urgent for the monitoring of criminal activities against the background of the series of major bombings that trailed the tenure of the last administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, especially the October 1st bombing, which occurred in the heart of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
Investigations have revealed that ZTEL Incorporated, a firm doing business in Nigeria under the name ZTEL Nigeria, shortly after receiving $70.5 million as counterpart fund from the Federal Government, defaulted on critical areas of the contractual terms.
It was discovered that ZTEL’s impunity was made possible with clandestine connivance of top Nigerian officials, thereby allowing the firm to fail in playing its own part in the provision of the CCTV Cameras in the two cities.
Further investigations revealed that Lagos currently has less than 600 of such installations, while those so far installed in Abuja are not functioning, a situation that handicapped operational dragnet of all the security forces after the August 26, 2011 United Nations bomb blast in the same FCT.
Findings pointed to how the firm made a U-turn after receiving the $70.5 million, which was 15 per cent of the $470 million expected to finance the contract, leaving Nigeria with a loan debt of $399.5 million in the Chinese EXIM Bank.
The EXIM Bank, which agreed to provide to remaining fund, is equally suspected to be a party in the conspiracy as the bank has been taking its repayment at 3 per cent rate from Nigeria.
The continued repayment of the loan to EXIM, which will span 10 years, is despite the non-completion of the contract by ZTEL, its Chinese indigenous firm, and a step described as a disregard to its initial MOU with Nigeria on monitoring progress of the work.
Other findings also revealed that ZTEL fell short of government’s expectations by not honouring in accurate terms supply of series of auxiliary communication gadgets, which include 37 units of Switch Rooms (MW backbone) and 37 units of Coalition Emergency Response Systems.
Others are six units of Emergency Communication Vehicles, 37 e-police Systems and 38 Video Conference Sub-Systems.
While some of these items were said not to be supplied at all in most cases, others were supplied at reduced quantity under the nose of Nigerian Government top officials who allegedly received kickback from ZTEL.
ZTEL also violated another agreement in the contract, which stipulated that the Chinese firm would train Nigerian security experts for a certain period of time on how to read and interpret video recordings of the cameras in case of criminal or bomb attacks.
Security sources revealed that attempts to secure experts’ transfer training from ZTEL yielded no results as the firm itself did not operate the installations for once before handling them over to the Federal Government through the ministry of Police Affairs.
There are also questions over why ZTEL Corporation of China, which bided and got the job, refused to execute it directly as contained in the agreement.
Rather it later sublet the job to ZTEL Nigeria, a firm not known to the Federal Government in entire the deal.
According to ministry sources, a former Minister of Police Affairs, Caleb Olubolade, was said to have refused to issue ZTEL a certificate of completion on the contract following what he described as “a shoddy job and poor contract supervision” inherited from his predecessor, Aminu Adamu Waziri.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian House of Representatives is spoiling for a showdown with ZTEL over its failure to complete and meet all terms of the contract as the House has summoned the firm to appear before an investigative hearing slated for this week.
The House is also said to be interested in determining to what extent the Chinese nationals of ZTEL have been paying taxes to the coffers of the government. [myad]
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The Presidency has described the regime of President Goodluck Jonathan as a discredited one from which President Muhammadu Buhari could not have accepted what it called ‘questionable monetary gift.’
