Like some tiny bits of an intriguing puzzle, Nigerians may have only begun to make some sense of yet another chapter of the Jonathan-era malfeasance described as armsgate. As it were, armsgate would surely qualify as the biggest scandal in years. And that is saying a lot in a country where corruption is more or less a daily staple. I say this not necessarily because of the princely $2 billion-plus –said to have been plundered by PDP’s primitive gang under the cover of arms purchase, but on account of the multi-layered heist as well as the unprecedented violation of the nation’s financial protocols as reported.
Admittedly, the story is only just unfolding. However, the elements and the plot, the twists and turns that have emerged thus far would seem the classic stuff of the Nigerian story. In a sense, the soap titled armsgate is actually the Nigerian story being re-told in a fresh way.
For obvious reasons, I can only dwell on the general – rather than specifics – at this stage of the incredible story. To the extent that there are already different accounts of what has been discovered by the investigators, or even the details of what transpired at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions (EFCC) over the course of the past week, yours truly will only make some preliminary comments at this stage.
How much does the former President Goodluck Jonathan know? That is no doubt the billion dollar question. At a conversational forum co-hosted by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), United States, the former President had stated emphatically: “Where did the money come from? I did not award a contract of $2billion for procurement of weapons!”
Now, the man at the eye of the storm, Sambo Dasuki says otherwise. In a statement issued last Wednesday, the former NSA stated that all contracts and accruing payments were made based on the approval of ex-President Jonathan: “Nigerians should note that all the services generated the types of equipment needed, sourced suppliers most times and after consideration by the Office of the NSA, the President will approve application for payment.”
That was before the intervention by Raymond Dokpesi Jnr. – son of the media mogul, Raymond Dokpesi who was earlier picked on account of a N2.1 billion cash payment. While clarifying his father’s involvement in the scandal, the younger Dokpesi reportedly said: “We will like to make it abundantly clear that Dr. Dokpesi’s Daar Investment and Holdings Company Ltd, developed a proposal presented to the former President Goodluck Jonathan proposing a Multi Media Strategic Development Support Project to promote and project the achievements and highlight the challenges of his government whilst demystifying false information gleefully circulated by the propaganda machinery of the then opposition party”.
That proposal, according to him was submitted to the former President in person by the older Dokpesi and his team in the presence of the former Vice President, Namadi Sambo, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. More significantly, he further claimed that the proposal was “thoroughly studied, approved and paid for by the Presidency through the office of the National Security Adviser” which “has multiple budgetary sub-heads including for communication and information”. Of course, he would also insist “that the proposal had absolutely nothing to do with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), nor the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC)”.
Really? Anyway, that was Dokpesi Jnr.’s account.
Now, I do not pretend to know how the Jonathan presidency worked but then the account, if true, would appear hardly flattering either to the prestige of the number one office or its occupant. The implications are simply mind-bending. By personally accepting the proposal from the DAAR team for whatever reasons, the President of course stands rightly accused of overtly subverting due process and the law under some phantom exigency. To imagine that we are not talking of some “chicken change” but a whopping sum of N2.1 billion – imagine also that this quantum expenditure is being alleged to have been passed off on the President’s coffee table – just like that!
Call it what you like – I say it is the ultimate desecration of the exalted office. Again, that is if the account is true!
But then, tale of the absurd does not even there. There are in fact other legs of the same riveting story. One says that some of the expenditures were charged to the account of the national oil corporation. Knowing how the former administration reduced the NNPC account into a piggy bank to cater for all manners of purposes under the sun, that could not have come to anyone as a surprise. As if that was not terrible enough, the official line given for moving the funds was that it was needed to prosecute the war in the North-east! And to imagine that this was happening at a time when soldiers at the theatre of the battle openly complained of being starved of weapons and kits – and also a time President Jonathan was seeking approval for a $1 billion loan to prosecute the war!
The other leg is the role of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). If Nigerians are any familiar with the Jonathan administration’s reduction of the disciplined science of economic management to a free-for-all regime of disparate actors united by greed, the role of the apex bank in fostering the regime’s criminal enterprise is, at least until now, little known. That unfortunately seems to have changed now going by the reports of the involvement of the apex banking institution in extensive money laundering activities and plain economic sabotage. Again, these remains what they are – allegations. Now, if it seems unimaginable that the apex bank will dispense with the extant controls in doing the bidding of hierarchs of the Jonathan administration, more unimaginable is that the officials went would go as far as breaking the nation laws in the process. While the EFCC will hopefully help to unravel these and many other allegations in due course, I must again make this preliminary comment about the myth of autonomy of the apex bank – erroneous but expansive interpretation of the concept to mean independence. Let me explain what I understand by the autonomy of the apex bank. For me it means the absolute discretion of the CBN to deploy monetary policy instruments to address specific challenges in the financial system. It does not and cannot by any stretch of imagination be taken as independence – a licence to murder – as we saw under former CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi where an individual can, with the stroke of the pen authorise N620 billion no matter how good the cause is! Isn’t the obverse side of the same coin the alleged withdrawal of several millions of dollars by the Jonathan administration from the CBN vault for PDP’s good causes?
In closing, I must say that we have had a good week of media show of the scandal. But then, this, we all know is hardly enough. Indeed, the real battle is in the court-room. Outside the courts, very little matter really. EFCC has treated us to enough of the entertainment to last several lifetimes. Time to get down to the business of prosecution.
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