The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is investigating series of allegedly dubious payments made to politicians and government officials by a former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.). Investigators had earlier invited the Chairman/Editor-in-Chief of Thisday Newspapers, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena, whom Dasuki reportedly gave N670m.
Obaigbena, who has promised to honour the invitation when he returns to the country from the United States of America, has explained the circumstances behind the payments in a letter to the EFCC chairman. A copy of the letter, dated December 9, 2014, was made available to Saturday PUNCH on Friday. Obaigbena disclosed that he collected N550m as compensation for the Boko Haram attacks on Thisday’s offices in Abuja and Kaduna on April 26, 2012.
The Thisday founder, who is also the President of the Newspapers Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria, added that he received an additional N120m as compensation for 12 newspaper houses whose copies were seized by soldiers in June 2014. The soldiers claimed they acted on intelligence that Boko Haram wanted to use newspaper distribution vans to transport explosive materials. The newspapers are Thisday, Vanguard, The Sun, The Nation, New Telegraph, Daily Trust, People’s Daily, Leadership, Daily Independence, Nigerian Tribune, The Guardian and Business Day.
However, while some of the newspapers listed to have benefitted from the N120m confirmed doing so, others said neither Obaigbena nor NPAN remitted any money to them as claimed by the Thisday Publisher
For example, a statement from the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of the New Telegraph Newspapers, Mrs. Funke Egbemode, denied that N10m was paid to the company by NPAN.
It says, “It is on record that following the decision of NPAN to seek compensation from the Federal Government in the aftermath of the seizure of editions of newspapers by the military, New Telegraph computed its losses, which were passed to the association. However, since then, the company has heard nothing from the association on the matter.
“Following a report that NPAN has begun paying N9m (not N10m as contained in the report that has gone viral on the Internet), the management of Daily Telegraph Publishing Company Limited, publishers of New Telegraph, Saturday Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, has written three letters to NPAN for its share of the compensation; but regrettably, as at this moment, not even a kobo has been received.
“Therefore, it is nothing but sheer falsehood for the NPAN president, who claimed he received the money on behalf of the association, to have included New Telegraph Newspapers as one of the beneficiaries of the funds, which as it has now emerged, was disbursed by the former NSA.”
Tribune, and Peoples Daily also said they did not receive the said compensation. However, Daily Trust, Leadership and Sun confirmed that the sum collected from government was remitted.
Details of the payment and how it was made were contained in court documents filed against Dasuki and a former Director of Finance at the NSA office, Shaibu Salisu at a Federal High Court, Abuja on Monday.
The charge reads: “That you Col. Mohammed Sambo Dasuki whilst being National Security Adviser and Shaibu Salisu, whilst being the Director of Finance and Administration in the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) between 12th August 2014 and 23rd March 2015 in Abuja within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacities entrusted with dominion over certain properties to wit: the sum of N670m being part of the funds in the account of the ONSA with the CBN committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property when you transferred same to the bank account of General Hydrocarbons Limited with the Guaranty Trust Bank controlled by one Nduka Obaigbena purporting the said sum to be payment for “energy consulting” and you thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Vol.4, LFN 2004.”
The ongoing investigation by the EFCC on the alleged stolen funds by the ex-NSA last week had led to the arrest of another media mogul, the ex-Chairman of DAAR Communications, Raymond Dokpesi, for allegedly receiving N2.1bn from Dasuki.
Others arrested are Dasuki, Salisu; a former Minister of State for Finance, Bashiru Yuguda; an ex-governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa; his son, Sagir and a son of a former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Haliru Mohammed, Abba.
In his statement, Obaigbena insisted that the payments were legitimate.
His statement reads, “We have never received any suspicious funds from the Office of the National Security Adviser. All funds received from the Office of the National Security Adviser were payments for compensation to mitigate the following:
“N150,000,000+ N150,000,000 and N250,000,000 respectively received in August, November and February 2014 as compensation to mitigate the dastardly Boko Haram twin bombings of the THISDAY Newspapers offices in Abuja and Kaduna on Thursday, April 26, 2012, during which four innocent Nigerians’ lives were lost, our buildings destroyed and we lost full colour Gross printing towers and three (3) pre-press Computer-To-Plate and auxiliary equipment and other (in)valuable property valued at over N2.5bn.
“This is aside from daily costs to pay 3rd party printers of over N1bn, having lost our printing facility to terrorists due to inadequate protection by the Federal Government of Nigeria. The bombing of THISDAY offices followed the Abuja United Nations building bombing for which the Federal Government has so far spent N3bn for reconstruction and much more earmarked for furnishing.
“N100, 000,000 and N20, 000,000 received in March 2015 for The Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria and 12 newspapers who demanded compensation for the brutal and unlawful seizure of newspapers and stoppage of circulation by armed soldiers in Abuja and several cities. As President of the NPAN, it was my duty to lead media leaders to hold discussions with President Goodluck Jonathan to avert a class action lawsuit against the Armed Forces and the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“On both occasions, President Jonathan said he did not wish to lay precedence and in our case, he specifically said there were many victims of Boko Haram. I had to confront President Jonathan on the issue when I learnt of approvals for the reconstruction of the Abuja United Nations Building, since we were the second major organisation to be attacked by Boko Haram after the UN attack. He therefore directed me to meet the National Security Adviser, who processed the three payments in question.”
Obaigbena also attached a copy of the letter sent to former President Jonathan as well as correspondence with Dasuki, while stating he would meet with the EFCC on his return to the country.
As a company, we collected N9m –Daily Trust
One of the media companies, which received the payment, Daily Trust, issued a statement on Friday through its Editor-In-Chief, Mannir Dan Ali, and also confirmed that it collected N9m.
Ali said, “It was at the time military personnel were interrupting the distribution of our newspapers. We considered the option of going to court to seek for damages but there was a meeting of Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria. We were told (at the meeting) that government was desirous of compensating those who lost whatever it was that they lost in terms of not being able to distribute their newspapers for the number of days that that operation happened; and that all members of NPAN who were affected, should submit their claims.
“Media Trust submitted its own claims. At the end of the day, ten million Naira (N10m) was to be given to us out of which, the consensus made at the NPAN level was that NPAN had issues with its Secretariat and out of that N10m, N1m was ceded to NPAN. As a company, we were given nine million naira (N9m) as compensation for the losses we suffered over that period.”
Leadership Newspapers: We got N10m
The Deputy Managing Director, Leadership Newspaper, Mr. Mike Okpere, also confirmed that the Abuja-based newspaper got N10m. He said, “We did a computation of our loss and it was substantially more than that N10m and we gave it to NPAN and NPAN I heard handed it over to the NSA and what it resulted in was that each newspaper House was given N10m each as compensation. NPAN was to go to court. This was out of court settlement. That is what happened.”
We did not collect any money –Peoples Daily
One of the first newspapers to deny receiving the money was Peoples Daily Newspaper. In an email to one of our correspondents by its management, the company said it did not receive any compensation from government.
It says, “One of the revelations on the current inquisition of the tenure of the former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.) is that this newspaper is among several other national dailies that received the sum of N10m from the office of the former NSA through Nduka Obaigbena, the President of Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria.
“We don’t know of others, therefore, we can’t speak for them. This is news to us. At no time was such money made available to us in whatever guise. We wish to state clearly that it is false and therefore, wish to completely distant this medium from this revelation.”
Also a statement made available to Saturday PUNCH by the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, Tribune titles, Mr. Edward Dickson, denied the claim that a sum of N10m was paid to the company as compensation for the disruption of circulation operations and seizure of newspapers.
It said, “Although, like other NPAN members, we filed claims as requested for by NPAN, the fact of the matter is that up till this moment, December 11, 2015, our company has yet to receive a kobo as compensation from NPAN for the 2014 disruptive activities of the military to our operations.”
The Sun Publishing Limited, in a statement, denied claims that it received a share of the alleged $2.1bn slush fund from the Office of the NSA.
It, however, admitted to have received N9m compensation from the Federal Government for the seizure of its newspapers and stoppage of its circulation by armed military men in 2014.
The newspaper, in a statement signed by its Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief, Mr. Eric Osagie, on Friday, said the clarification was necessary to silence “mischief makers spreading falsehood on an imaginary huge sum paid to The Sun as part of its share of an alleged $2.1bn slush fund from the Office of the NSA.
“We can boldly say it that we did not share any slush fund with anybody and got none from any quarter. Ours is an organisation run by professionals who place high premium on individual and corporate integrity and as such, will not compromise great values imbibed over the years.”
It said that the demand compensation was necessary because of the brutal and unlawful seizure of newspapers and stoppage of circulation by armed soldiers in Abuja and several cities across the country around June 2014.
It said, “It is on record that the action of the military which led to huge losses to the affected newspapers was roundly and globally condemned then.
“We had to accept the Federal Government’s offer along with others in place of years of litigation in the interest of peace and national security even though the amount was a far cry from the huge loss of revenue incurred by The Sun at the time.”
The Managing Director of The Guardian newspapers, Mr. Emeka Izeze, declined to comment on the issue.
“Talk to your MD to tell you what the position is. Forget about Guardian; okay, okay,” he said.
His colleague in the Daily Independent, Mr. Ted Iwere, also declined to comment on the issue, saying “He (Obaigbena) should tell you how much he gave Daily Independent; you should ask him now how much he gave to us. That is all I can say for now.”
Efforts to reach the Publisher of the Business Day, Mr. Frank Aigbogun; and Managing Directors of the Vanguard Newspapers, Mr. Gbenga Adefuye and The Nation Newspaper Nigeria, Mr. Victor Ifijeh, were not successful.
Adefuye and Aigbogun did not answer calls made to their telephone lines or respond to text messages sent to them.
Ifijeh’s telephone line was not available till 8.30pm, when this report was being filed.
“Tell it to the marines”
For the better part of Friday, the revelation dominated public discourse among Nigerians, especially on the Internet. Some of those who spoke wondered why the monies paid to the Thisday publisher were paid under a strange subheading, “Energy consultant”, and whether it was proper for the money to have been paid into the publisher’s private account. Others raised posers about the propriety of newspapers receiving compensation a secret and non-procedural arrangement.
A media expert, Felix Adenaike, said it was wrong for any newspaper publisher to have requested for compensation from the Federal Government as the latter was not an insurance or reinsurance company.
Adenaike, who once ran newspaper houses like Daily Sketch and Tribune, wondered when the office of the NSA became a pay office.
He said, “When did the office of the NSA become a political party for disbursing funds? Was it not what Olisa Metuh should be doing? I’ve been friends with three former NSAs of this country and I never knew them sharing money. I even called them now to find out if they once paid money on behalf of the government and they said “no.” “The publishers in question placed their media houses at the disposal of the Federal Government or when did the government or the office of the NSA become an insurance company? “When I set up my company 33 years ago, I insured it. When I quit the place and moved it to my house, I insured it and all my equipment. They should go and tell their stories to the marines that the money paid them was compensation for destroyed offices.
“If you’re going to be contracted for publicity for a political party, shouldn’t the funds have passed through the office of the party’s publicity secretary? When did the office of the NSA become an insurance company?”
The advocate of the Bring Back Our Girls Group, Oby Ezekwesili, said if compensation could be paid to the newspapers, then it should have been paid to owners of motor parks, mosques, churches, and schools that were attacked by Boko Haram.
She wrote on Twitter, “For demanding accountability, they called us names – “Enemy of the state,” “Unpatriotic,” “Psychological Terrorists,” while they stole on.
$322m I gave Dasuki was for arms procurement, Okonjo-Iweala insists
Meanwhile, the immediate past Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, released a letter in which she sought the permission of Jonathan to transfer money to Dasuki.
The ex-minister in the letter, which was made available to one of our correspondents by his Media Adviser, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, asked Jonathan to approve $300m and £5.5m for the former NSA. She stated that the money was for procurement of arms to fight Boko Haram.
The letter dated January 20, with reference number CME-HMF/FMF/2015/18 personally signed by the ex-minister and addressed to Jonathan, stated that the money was part of the fund recovered from the loot of former Head of State, the late General Sani Abacha.
The letter reads, “Please find a request by the National Security for the transfer of $300m and British Pounds £5.5m of the recovered Abacha loot to fund the ONSA operations account.
“The NSA has explained that this is to enable purchase of ammunitions, security and other intelligence equipment for the security agencies in order to enable them to fully confront the ongoing Boko Haram threat.”
Source :The Punch
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