APC To Goodluck:Tell Nigerians All You Know About Seized $9.3m

The All Progressives Congress, APC, has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to come clean on the circumstances surrounding the seized money.
In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also called on the National Assembly to launch an urgent investigation into the issue, saying the silence of the peoples’ representatives on the issue is deafening, unfathomable and unacceptable.
According to the statement, ”it is absolutely urgent for President Jonathan to clear the air on this alleged off-the-shelf equipment or arms purchase, which runs against all known protocol for such purchases anywhere in the world. Military equipment and weapons are not bean cakes to be purchased by the road side.
There are globally-acceptable protocols for such purchases by governments, otherwise what differentiates a government from an insurgent group that is shopping for arms?
‘’Is the Jonathan Administration not aware that the UN General Assembly on April 2nd, 2013 adopted a landmark Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to regulate the international trade in conventional weapons by avoiding the kind of road-side purchase that the Nigerian government is said to have been involved in?
Though the ATT has not come into effect, the fact that Nigeria is among few countries to have signed and ratified the treaty shows that the country is concerned by unregulated arms trade,’’ APC said.
The party said the resort to ‘’procedural error’’ to explain away the whole issue cannot work, because Nigerian authorities cannot pretend not to be aware that currency brought into or taken from South Africa is monitored by law, and that anyone bringing into that country more than R25,000 in South African currency or U$10,000 or the equivalent thereof in foreign currency must declare such.
It said that in any case, those who are using ‘’procedural error’’ as an alibi are being too clever by half. This is because if entering or leaving a country with undeclared $9.3 million is mere ‘’procedural error’’, why was Sule Lamido’s son convicted for not declaring a mere $50,000 dollars at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport?
APC said, however, that in the spirit of fairness, it has decided to give President Jonathan and the government he heads the opportunity to make urgently-needed clarifications by answering a number of questions relating to the $9.3 million scandal: Is the money indeed meant to purchase a helicopter as has been reported?
To which arm of the government or security force does the money belong? Who appropriated it and for what purpose? Why was the money being ferried in cash by the same government that has been spending huge time and money to promote a cashless policy? Is the resort to cash to avoid a paper trail for the transaction, in which case it is illegal?
‘’Mr. President, we are aware that each arm of security has an account with the CBN for the purpose of arms purchase and such transactions are properly documented, so why was this not the case in this instance?