A panic-stricken former President Goodluck Jonathan has sent former Commonwealth Secretary General, Emeka Anyaoku, to plead with President Muhammadu Buhari not to launch an official probe of his administration.
Emeka Anyaoku and former President Goodluck Jonathan
Several sources in Abuja, including aides of President Buhari, briefed SaharaReporters exclusively about former President Jonathan’s dispatch of Mr. Anyaoku as an emissary to his successor.
One of our sources said Mr. Jonathan moved quickly to send powerful intercessors to the Presidency after the Buhari administration began to question massive last-minute withdrawals and disappearance of more than $20 billion in government funds orchestrated by former President Jonathan as well as his closest ministers and aides.
One source familiar with Mr. Anyaoku’s desperate mission to President Buhari revealed that the former Commonwealth chief executive urged the new president to remember that Mr. Jonathan voluntarily decided not to contest the results of the March 28, 2015 presidential election, won by Mr. Buhari, on the understanding that he and his administration would not be subjected to a probe.
Our sources disclosed that Mr. Anyaoku spent a little more than two hours in a close-door meeting yesterday where he sought to prevail on President Buhari to halt the ongoing probe of what happened to billions of public funds during the last few months of the Jonathan government.
Before imploring Mr. Anyaoku to plead with President Buhari, Mr. Jonathan had also asked former military head of state, Abdulsalam Abubakar, to speak to the current president and suggest a suspension of all ongoing probes. Mr. Buhari has put in place several investigative committees to probe the illicit withdrawal and disbursement of public funds by the Jonathan administration. The presidential committees are charged with advising the administration on strategies for retrieving any public assets stolen by officials and cohorts of the Jonathan Presidency.
One of the committees has already discovered that Mr. Jonathan and some members of his cabinet apparently colluded in the dying days of the previous government to loot billions of dollars. The funds were looted via the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Ministry of Finance, the Nigerian Maritime Authority, the Federal Capital Territory, and several other departments. A source within the investigative committee revealed that Mr. Jonathan and his closest aides and political appointees made illegal withdrawals of funds to finance his failed bid for re-election.
Former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has stated that former President Jonathan asked her to withdraw more than $1.2 billion from the excess crude account. Even though Mrs. Okonji-Iweala continues to maintain publicly that she did nothing wrong during her tenure, a source told SaharaReporters that the former minister, who coordinated economic affairs during the former president’s tenure, has been quietly cooperative with the Buhari administration. According to the source, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala has offered what amounts to a dossier of corrupt deals authorized by the former president.
In an attempt to curry favor with the new government, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala recently directed officials of her polling agency, NOI Polls, to give President Buhari a 70% approval rating among Nigerians. “The polling results were simply cooked up,” a professional pollster told SaharaReporters. Prior to the 2015 general elections, the former minister’s fake polling organization kept repeating that Mr. Jonathan approval rating was up even as his political fortune plummeted.
SaharaReporters also learned that former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, is also actively cooperating with the Buhari administration. As earlier revealed by us, Mrs. Alison-Madueke had struck a deal with the new government to submit a document to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) exposing her collaborators at the NNPC. The former Petroleum minister, who was one of the closest cabinet members to Mr. Jonathan—and the mastermind of numerous money laundering deals on behalf of the former president—currently shuttles between the UK and Switzerland. A source close to Mrs. Alison-Madueke said the former minister was receiving treatment in the UK related to breast cancer.
After emerging from his marathon meeting with Mr. Buhari yesterday, Mr. Anyaoku claimed that he had visited to offer “advice” to the president regarding his forthcoming official trip to the US. Mr. Buhari is scheduled to start his US trip on Sunday.
A source at the Presidency told SaharaReporters that Mr. Anyaoku had misrepresented the purpose of his visit. “The elder statesman [Anyaoku] did not come to advise Mr. President about the trip to the US. The plans for the trip were already concluded a while ago, with all logistics and programming support,” the source added.
Former President Jonathan is currently in Abuja where he remains in constant touch with Abdulsalam Abubakar and other political players to prevail on President Buhari to halt the probe of his administration.
One source at the Presidency revealed that Mr. Buhari was not receptive to Mr. Anyaoku’s pleas. According to the source, the president told the former Commonwealth chief executive that the massive theft of funds by officials of the previous administration had robbed him of funds to start meeting his promises to the Nigerian people. “The president’s concern is for everybody who stole funds, including the former president, to disclose their willingness to return their loot to the Nigerian people,” the source added.
Hmmm niger area if really from what i just read that Emeka Anyaoku is begging the PMB not to probe GEJ govt then wherein lies the hope for the nigerian youth such a big shame. After you see them in churches.
It is a common saying that, many days for the thief,and one day for the owner.The darkest part of the night is just before dawn.
To say that I’m enraged is an understatement. How could Abdulsalam and Anyaoku be allowed to be used for such a smelly task on behalf of GEJ, that is if the story was true. If GEJ did take such a step, then he is forever a daft to think that he would receive a part at the back for a job well done. He was so brazen in his impunity that he forgot he could lose in that election. He certainly deserves all he gets in terms of misfortune but not a pardon.
No amount of pleas and chasing the shadow can save GEJ and his corrupt ministers and officials from being probed and prosecuted for the massive lootings that happened under GEJ’s (mal)administration, unless he and his adventurers in government return all the stolen money. Nigerians cannot continue to bear the burden of their embezzlement as a result of the virtually empty treasury left for the PMB government, while such money is kept in their private accounts and estates across the globe. It’s callous, insensitive and very wicked for GEJ and his hawks in the past (mal)administration to be asking for “forgiveness” and “understanding” while the whole nation is been brought to its knees, as a result of their unrestrained financial indiscipline, recklessness and corruption.
This report can never be true, how can GEJ expect that him and his govt will not be probed? That will be simplistic and naive. I’m sure he is expecting the probe and it has even started. Lets see how far PMB will go with his probe. I hope the govt will be ready to prosecute him should he be found wanting and be ready to render apology if he comes out clean. PMB should get down to work and spare us the second book of lamentations he is currently writing.
If this report is true, I would be surprised and disappointed in the person of Mr. Anyaoku to have agreed to be part of this dirty game. I believe that every patriotic Nigerian should be ready to support President Buhari in this mission. All those who stole our common wealth should be made to return their loots and must be jailed.