- In view of the deluge of allegations involving corruption in his era, the former president owes it to Nigerians to explain his role
In the past month, Nigerians have been besieged by a surge of sleaze. The panel, led by Air Vice Marshal John Ode, has unearthed stories of alleged corruption in high places. It has revolved around the office of the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki, involving about several billions of naira.
The narrative has evolved as a theatre of accusations and recriminations, about full-throated defences, protestations of innocence, explanations hiding under veils of technicalities, half-confessions overcast by shadows of regret, epistolary flourishes marked by aggressive assertions and the bandying about of figures.
Whether during arrests, or through supine visages in court or defiant poses on newspaper pages or electronic media, the persons involved in this still unfolding drama have further desecrated the cathedral vista of government office. They have brought the dignity of public service down to a farce of thieving.
Many persons were on the take. Many contracts defied the minimal rules of civilised transactions. The money disbursed in the name of national security fulfilled any imaginary purpose from online fantasy to religious ecstasy.
What is baffling in this cacophony of iniquity is the inscrutable silence of the principal actor in the regime: ex-President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. To be fair to the former Nigerian leader, he uttered a rebuttal on the onset of the allegations.
Hear him: “I did not award any $2 billion contract for the procurement of weapons. Where did the money come from?” he asked at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in the United States. Showing how he felt about the welter of allegations, he said, “Sometimes I feel sad when people mention these figures.”
President Jonathan also adverted to figures cited by the President Buhari Muhammadu administration after a visit to the U.S barely a month after he assumed office. “When the president paid official visit to the US, there were some figures that were mentioned that I don’t believe.” He referred to “$150 billion American money” reported to be missing, adding rhetorically, “and Americans will not know where it is?” He felt the allegations were not pelted at his administration.
This was November 19, 2015. In the flush of the first few days of the allegations, ex-NSA Dasuki also presented an exterior of innocence and victimisation. He issued a statement that seemed sturdy and beyond reproach. He said he was made NSA on June 22, 2012 while the allegations dated from March 2012. He explained that “all contracts and accruing payments were with the approval of the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces. Once the President approved, the NSA paid.” He added that “there was due process for every purchase in line with regulations guiding arms procurement for the armed forces.”
He noted further that “Nigerians should note that all the services generated the types of equipment needed, sourced for suppliers most times and after consideration by the Office of the NSA, the President will approve application for payment.”
He boasted that “I am ready for trial on all the allegations in order to prove to Nigerians that I did nothing untoward.”
Weeks after though, the picture seems to have changed. Its web has enveloped quite a few politicians, business men, the media, etc. Confessions have erupted from the lips of some of those who collected money direct from the Office of the NSA. For instance, the former chairman of the African Independent Television, or AIT, confessed to collecting the sum of N2.1 billion. His son defended the contract by saying former President Jonathan and former Vice President Namadi Sambo were present at the moment of approval. Was that what the NSA characterised as due process? Another absurd part of the story was the confession and revelation that N4.6 billion was disbursed to a former governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa, for religious purpose. The president of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN, Nduka Obaigbena, confessed to receiving N670 million as compensation for newspapers that suffered damages when the military impounded their products last year, and also for the bombing of his office building in Abuja by Boko Haram insurgents in 2012.
Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, a former minister of state for finance, said he dished out N100 million each to leaders of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) across the country, but the drama spun into an absurd light when some denied, including Bode George. George said the sum was inflated while Jim Nwobodo knew about the disbursement not from Yuguda but from party chairman Adamu Muazu. He claimed that when it fell on his laps, it was N500 million and he distributed it to the five governors of the southeast.
We cannot ignore former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and her confession. She wrote that the sum of $322 million was approved by President Jonathan before she conveyed the princely sum to Dasuki for the war on terror. The minister who claimed a regime above board has not explained how the sum was disbursed and why she raised no eyebrows while our soldiers starved and died in spite of the large allocation.
What this shows is that this is no more a fairy tale series of allegations. From the confessions, it is clear money passed from the office of the NSA, and princely sums at that. It refutes the NSA’s claims that they were unleashed on the war on terror, given the purposes for which some of the money was disbursed. Why, for instance, would a former governor collect N4.6 billion for spiritual reasons?
It is also questionable if these sums passed through the due process. Where were the certificates of incorporations of the companies, particulars of directors, tax clearance certificates from 2011, letters of award of contracts, invoice of supplies or services, evidence of payment so far and outstanding balances, personal income tax clearance certificates of directors, etc.?
The presences of party bigwigs in this unfolding narrative revealed that national security may have been the bogey man for this liberal shower of corruption. Is it true as some of the confessions have implied that national security was a guise to funnel slush funds for political campaigns?
What this betrays is a fundamental cankerworm in our body politic, and this is not restricted to the PDP. The perception of public funds as the entitlement of the power-that-be has turned our patrimony into a battleground. Any party or person in power uses the advantage of public funds to energise political campaign, pay off loyalty and overwhelm the opposition.
Now, the former president denied the allegations at the beginning, probably hoping the matter would die like a suffocated cat. But since the damning revelations, outcries of condemnation and sighs of disgust in the civil society, the principal player of the era, President Jonathan, needs to come clean about what he knows. If he knew nothing, then he was not in charge. But how could such huge sums of money move out of the government coffers without the knowledge of the chief accounting officer in government?
When he said he did not “believe” it, did he mean it was a lie or he wondered if it was true. If a former president spoke in such terms of ambiguous indignation, we have reason to wonder how he governed the country in about six years.
That is why he ought to unveil a methodical defence of all the allegations, even if the president is not willing to put him in the dock.
