President Buhari probe axe inching towards ex-President – Jonathan

                           

In fulfilment of his major campaign promise which earned him a resounding victory at this year’s presidential poll, President Muhammadu Buhari has hit-the-ground running with his avowed fight against official corruption in the system, particularly as it affects the sleaze and disregard for due process that allegedly characterised the immediate past government of President Goodluck Jonathan.

While Buhari’s hammer has already descended on some of the major actors in the Jonathan government, dependable sources volunteered that the heat is gradually inching towards the principal actor – Jonathan as official revelations, squealed by the ex-president’s henchmen, already quizzed by security agencies, have been found damning enough to round him up for explanations.

Though the Directorate of Security Service (DSS) has stated that Colonel Sambo Dasuki, the immediate past national security adviser was last week nicked and subjected to gruelling interrogation by the secret police high command for complicity in a treasonable offence, well-placed sources say he was taken in following the overly huge and unaccounted defence budgets, shelled out to the military and security agencies towards the fight against Boko Haram insurgents.

To ensure that the highly influential Dasuki did not slip through the fingers of the determined DSS operatives, they laid a simultaneous 24-hour siege to his residences in Sokoto and Abuja; invaded the residences and conducted a search for the documents that could aid President Buhari’s check up on the nation’s security expenses over the years, which are evidently disproportionate with the ratio of successes recorded by the Jonathan administration in the fight against Boko Haram, and with the acquired military capability in the counter-terrorism campaign. Apart from taking possession of Dasuki’s international passport, the DSS it was revealed, confiscated some documents it considered vital to the investigation the Buhari government is conducting on the expenditures of the massive defence and security budgets under Dasuki’s superintendence since June 2012, when he was appointed.

Jonathan’s minister for Finance and co-ordinating minister of the Economy, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on her part, is currently under multiple investigations by the federal government. The Buhari government started off with the investigation of her stewardship with the management of the Excess Crude Account (ECA). This came with her withdrawal of a sum totalling $2.1billion from the $4.1 left in the account in November last year, allegedly with disregard to due process and no authorisation. This infraction was revealed in the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting and disclosed to the public by the duo of governors Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, and Mallam Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State.

The former minister in her reaction, described all of these as “malicious, false and lacking basis,” in a statement issued by her media adviser, Paul Nwabuikwu. She argued that all expenditures from the ECA “were discussed at meetings of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, attended by finance commissioners from the 36 states,” and believes that “the persons behind these allegations acted as if the constitutionally recognised FAAC, a potent expression of Nigeria’s fiscal federalism, does not exist.”

Federation Accounts Allocation Committee FAAC, a forum of commissioners of finance and accountants general of the 36 states of the federation, which she incidentally claimed gave its nod for the withdrawal, promptly distanced itself from her claim and expressed disappointment with the manner she sought to entangle it in the controversy.

“It has come to our notice the statement credited to the former coordinating minister of the Economy and honorable minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) approved the withdrawal from Excess Crude (Foreign) Account the sum of two billion U.S. dollars ($2,000,000,000.00). This statement is far from the fact and is misleading,” the forum said. The forum pointed out that the law setting up FAAC, does not empower it to approve such withdrawals and that FAAC has never done so in the past.

“FAAC did not and could not have approved, nor took the decision to withdraw the sum of two billion U.S. Dollars ($2,000,000,000.00) from the Excess Crude Account,” the commissioners said.

Members of FAAC also revealed that the FAAC meeting of November 2014 ended rather in disagreement as Bashir Yuguda, the then minister of State for Finance, could not explain how the balance in the ECA suddenly dropped from $4.1 billion at the end of October to $3.1 billion.

In the frenzy to clear herself of guilt, Okonjo-Iweala further came up with an explanation that the sum was expended on subsidisation of fuel prices for the Nigerians and curiously, switched from the claim of getting authorisation for the withdrawal from FAAC to her boss, ex-president Jonathan. “Payments made were used for paying for petroleum subsidies for the Nigerian people and were approved by Mr. President,” she said.

On the heels of the $2.1 ECA controversial withdrawal is that of a revelation of non-remittance of tax proceeds from Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) by the Jonathan government, all through the years. This revelation came also from Oshiomhole, after a closed-door meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa. He revealed that NLNG paid $1.6 billion annually to Jonathan’s government, while Shell Bp remitted $500 million, all which never made it to the Federation Account. Oshiomhole, further disclosed that President Buhari pulled together the taxes from both entities, this time around to realise the $2.1 bail out fund to the states.

A source hinted that Obua was taken in following the quest of the federal government to extract vital information from him over unacceptable issues that went on in the Jonathan government.

As it appears, no one in the Jonathan government, who is viewed to have a shade of corruption, as well as things executed with a tinge of corruption by the Jonathan government would escape the heat.

Buhari had last week dissolved the governing boards of all federal government agencies and parastatals, following their inundation by Jonathan with politically-motivated appointments in the lead up to the general election and after. Again, following the alleged financier role he played with the finances of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) in leveraging the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party in the general election, Patrick Ziakede Akpobolokemi, the director-general of the agency, became the very first among his peers to be booted out by the Buhari administration. He was shown the exit door, last week. The president has also cancelled the waterway surveillance and security contract awarded to the Delta-born, ex- Niger Delta militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo.

As Buhari’s anti-corruption typhoon sweeps increasingly closer to Jonathan, a group, the Vanguard of Nigeria’s Democracy, last week raised alarm that Jonathan may soon be arrested and imprisoned.

In a statement issued by its spokesman, Osaghae Ogiemudia in Abuja, the group said it was aware “of some clandestine moves made by the APC-led government to probe, investigate, malign and imprison ex- President Jonathan.”

“We are already aware of the trumped-up charges the APC government is levelling against a man who has diligently served the Nigerian State at the highest level of government,” it said.