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The $2.2 Billion Armsgate and Metamorphosis of Boko haram By Abubakar Alkali The current revelations
regarding the corruption trial of former NSA Col Sambo Dasuki
(rtd) under the watch of former President Jonathan
has further exposed
the widely held allegation that the Jonathan administration was
subtly albeit indirectly but quite knowingly fuelling
the activities of the armed group Boko haram. These corruption allegations
are clear signals to the gross insincerity of the Jonathan administration to
fight Boko haram which directly emboldened Boko haram and made the sect what
it is today: The deadliest armed group in the world that has killed more souls
than ISIS and remains a potent danger to the continued corporate existence of
Nigeria. A countable number of insurgents with no formal military training
but have defied even a coalition of regional multinational force because
corruption has taken the centre stage. Indeed
official corruption in the last administration ensured that our gallant
troops were not given the weapons they need to confront Boko haram there by
affecting troop morale and making Boko haram what it is today. It is mindboggling that
such earth shaking scandal involving the alleged misappropriation and
deliberate diversion of $2.2 billion and N643.8 billion could have come at a
time of pervasive poverty in Nigeria when the average Nigerian is struggling
to make ends meet. To make matters worse, this monumental scandal was
perpetrated under the guise of fighting Boko haram which has sent tens of
thousands of innocent lives to their early graves in their on-going
relentless albeit senseless wave of killings which to the understanding of
Boko haram, is necessary for them to establish an Islamic state. There is now an
established link and a clear answer as to how Boko haram grew from an
unfortunate strength to strength as the world watch in bewilderment. The link
is that the Jonathan administration DELIBERATELY refused to supply the right
arms and weapons to enable our gallant soldiers confront Boko haram. This
fact was confirmed by no other person than Air Marshall Alex Badei the last Chief of Defence
staff under the former President Jonathan who said that our soldiers were not
given the right weapons to fight Boko haram. Instead, the Jonathan administration
used Boko haram as a franchise through which they justify illicit withdrawals
from the treasury which they allegedly divert to personal use and also to settle
sundry hobnobbers, PDP apologists and other
political hangers-on. It is sheer man’s
inhumanity to man that the people entrusted with the nation’s treasury can
allegedly divert cash meant for arms purchase for our soldiers to private
pockets and in the process issue a blank cheque to
Boko haram to kill and maim at will. It will be mindboggling to think of how
many lives this scandal has led to the loss of and how many could have been
saved if the stolen cash was used for its paper-purpose which is to buy arms
to equip our gallant soldiers to enable them protect innocent citizens from
Boko haram. Apart from the ‘declaration of total war’ against its own
citizens which it should supposedly protect, there is no other way to
comprehend this monumental fraud and corruption perpetrated by this gang of
looters of our commonwealth under the watchful eyes of former President
Jonathan. Recall that one of the
accused, former finance minister Ngozi-Okonjo Iweala has added a new twist to the saga by posting a
letter written by Col Dasuki (rtd)
to request for funds to ‘purchase weapons to fight Boko haram’ which was
subsequently approved by former President Jonathan. It beggars belief as to how
a sitting government could allegedly deceive its citizens that their resources
are going to be used to buy arms to protect them only for the same government
to allegedly divert same to their private pockets and leave out the citizens
at the mercy of Boko haram. In February 2014,
Governor Shettima made a ground-breaking revelation
that the Boko haram are better equipped than the Nigeria army. Many people
didn’t take the erudite governor serious. Some even thought that the Governor
was playing to the gallery as they find it impossible to comprehend how a
ragtag group of insurgents with no formal military training and no defined
source of income could identify, source and acquire sophisticated weaponry
while Nigeria with all its resources and an army that has distinguished
itself in peace keeping operations all around the world could not. Even our gallant
soldiers themselves have complained several times that they are ill equipped to
fight and defeat Boko haram. There were even cases of alleged mutiny amongst
the soldiers where they refused to move to the battlefront for lack of weapons.
At some point, some soldiers in Maiduguri sent to fight Boko haram allegedly
got into their trucks, drove to the outskirts of Maiduguri and packed there
refusing to move to the battlefield for lack of weapons. Some soldiers even
had to go to the media to push forward their complaint of lack of adequate
weapons to fight Boko haram. The wives and widows of
our gallant soldiers even staged a demonstration in August 2014 to put
forward their complaint that their husbands are being killed by Boko haram for
lack of weapons. Security experts, retired military officers and other
stakeholders have all cautioned the Jonathan administration that our gallant
soldiers are not properly kitted to defeat Boko haram. All these fell on deaf
ears because corruption was not ready to listen to anyone. The weapons allegedly
at the disposal of the soldiers were Shakabula
ripples that were often times used by hunters while Boko haram parades
AK47’s, RPG’s, surface-to-air and other sophisticated and superior weapons. Every year since former
President Jonathan was sworn in as duly elected in May 2011, about N1
trillion was appropriated in the national budget to buy weapons to fight Boko
haram. Where has all these money gone to? It counters logic as to why a
national security adviser should handle issues bordering on arms and
equipment to prosecute a war while the Chiefs of Defence,
Army, Navy and the Air Force are effectively side-lined. Under normal circumstances,
it is the service chiefs that should handle issues to do with arms purchase
and not the national security adviser. The national security adviser is not
the custodian of these weapons and certainly not the one that will use them,
the service chiefs are. Because the Jonathan
government is convinced beyond any possible doubt that the best way to fight
Boko haram is to politicise the issue, they made
the NSA the focal point of their war against Boko haram instead of the
service chiefs. Recall that there are allegations that former President
Jonathan and his wife Patience till this moment believed that Boko haram was
created to remove Jonathan from office hence the war is not really worth
fighting for. Former President Jonathan even said Boko haram is a ‘Northern
affair’. Even when former President Jonathan was confronted with facts to
prove that Boko haram is just another ideological insurgency like the ISIS
inspired one in Iraq and Afghanistan, the former President stood his ground
that Boko haram is a Northern creation to retain political power. The rest is
history. There is a 3 way route
through which the alleged $2.2 billion cash was meandered after which it settled at
its intended final destination: private pockets of the so-called PDP
chieftains and their apologists. The first route was to use the excuse of ‘purchase
of arms to fight Boko haram’ as the official justification to seek for
‘approvals’ to withdraw the cash. When the cash is withdrawn, they allegedly
use ‘phony’ projects such as elections, spiritual guidance, settlement to
journalists whose newspapers were confiscated by the military etc to determine who goes home with the lion share and
who settles for less. The $2.2 billion sleaze
was driven under a PDP platform so the condition for anyone to benefit from
the largesse is that such a person must be a PDP member. This is the reason
why people like Attahiru Bafarawa
with minimal understanding of what governance and development are all about
but a maximum knowledge of how to share government cash and inflate contracts,
quickly left APC of which he was a founding member and joined the PDP (Bafarawa actually hired the lawyers that prepared the APC
constitution but ended up leaving the party because he ‘doesn’t belong). It simply beggars belief
as to how Bafarawa walked home with N4.2 billion
for ‘spiritual purposes’ out of the cash meant to purchase weapons to fight
Boko haram. Bafarawa has perfected the art of using
the national security adviser to siphon government funds as he did during the
late Abacha era when he used the then NSA, Gwarzo
to be part of the sharing of the national cake. Bafarawa
used Sokoto to make stupendous wealth under Abacha
by parading himself as the ‘political leader’ of Sokoto
state hence any share for votes from Sokoto state
should go to him after which he will ‘share it out’ as he deems fit. Of
course he doesn’t share out anything as we have seen in the latest saga. May
be Bafarawa should be reminded not to take the
people of Sokoto for granted because when we say
‘Allah ya isa’ it stands.
It is the Allah ya isa’
from the good people of Sokoto state that has
caught up with Bafarawa. Since 1999, Bafarawa has been fighting the people of Sokoto state despite the fact that Sokoto
made him what he is today. However, the people of Sokoto
state don’t fight anybody. Our greatest weapon is prayers and the legacy left
to us by the late iconic Sultan of Sokoto Sir Abubakar 111 who always says ‘Ku barsu
da Allah’ (Leave everything to Almighty Allah). The alleged $2.2 billion
cash was not meant to buy weapons to fight Boko haram neither was it meant
for the 2015 elections. Rather it was meant to settle PDP apologists who have
individually and jointly complained to the then Jonathan government about the
fact that it was time for some ‘settlement and mobilisation’
before the elections to enable them fight Buhari.
The PDP ‘chieftains’ were able to sale the idea to former President Jonathan
that they needed some sort of financial rehabilitation to enable them
confront Gen Buhari in the 2015 elections. Remember
that the PDP has sworn to do everything possible to stop Gen Buhari from winning the 2015 elections. Eventually,
Jonathan lost the 2015 elections in grand style and by so doing set the stage
for the eventual extinction and demise of the PDP which may not last another
3 years in circulation in Nigeria. A clear case of nemesis catching up with
the PDP, a party which turned governance into a chop-chop open play. The scenario for the alleged
missing $2.2 billion paints a picture of a group of desperate politicians,
journalists, spiritualist, herbalists, marabouts, soothsayers and political
hangers-on moving in like wasps and swamping on the cash. How could one
explain the fact that Attahiru Bafarawa
admitted that he collected a whopping N4.2 billion for ‘spiritual purposes?
The spiritual purposes Bafarawa was talking about
is that he has been given the cash to mobilise and
pay off magicians, herbalists and marabouts to enable them pray hard and use
any concoction and juju they can remember to ensure that Buhari
doesn’t win the 2015 elections. Bafarawa
allegedly got almost all the N4.2 billion into his private pocket with no
sweat of his only to turn now and ask for ‘evidence’. What evidence does Bafarawa want when he himself has admitted that he
collected N4.2 billion from Dasuki for spiritual
purposes? What stops Bafarawa from simply dolling
out a few thousands of naira to the herbalists and marabouts and putting the
remaining billions into his private pocket? Bafarawa’s
herbalists, marabouts and jujumen are used to a
maximum of N10,000 for their services and some of
them will freeze at the mention of a billion naira because they have never
heard that word before. Bafarawa should now go back
to these herbalists and marabouts to collect receipts which he can use to
defend himself in court during his inevitable trial and eventual prosecution
leading to recovery of the funds and a jail term. It is simply astonishing
that Chief Raymond Dokpesi who absolutely has no
link with counter insurgency operations will pocket a cool N2.1 billion from cahs meant to ‘purchase arms to fight’ Boko haram. For
what reason other than to run fake documentaries of blackmail against Buhari and Tinubu on his AIT television
network? Raymond Dokpesi, himself a PDP ‘chieftain’
(whatever that means) is a very smart and ruthless businessman who knows the
inner workings of the national cake ‘sharing’ formula of the PDP. High Chief Dokpesi is also alleged to have collected another non-refundable
N1 billion from the Jonathan administration for ‘campaign and propaganda’
purposes in the run up to the 2015 general elections. If former NSA Dasuki allegedly gave out N4.2 billion to Bafarawa to organise a team of
marabouts to ‘pray’ against Buhari and also gave
Chief Dokpesi N2.1 billion to run a documentary of
blackmail against Buhari, N650 million to Nduka Obaibgena as compensation
for the attack on the premises of his Thisday
newspaper by Boko haram, over N10 million each to all members of NPAN, one
would be tempted to ask, how much did the NSA gave to the widows and orphans
who’s breadwinners were killed by Boko haram? Of course if anybody should
benefit from any government allocation in the name of Boko haram, it has to
be these widows and orphans. How about the over 5 million internally
displaced persons (IDPs) who are displaced from their homes by Boko haram and
have no food to eat or place to sleep? How much has NSA Dasuki
given to them or spent to buy them food or sleeping materials? Or is it only
PDP officials that are entitled to the largesse? The scandal has also
provided answers as to why the Jonathan administration was desperate to stop
the 2015 elections at all costs using former NSA Col Dasuki
(Rtd) as a front. Recall that Col Dasuki was the first to call for the postponement of the
elections in a lecture he delivered on 22nd January 2015 at the Chatham house
in London because according to him, ‘there was no security in Nigeria. The
former NSA also wrote a letter to service chiefs on 8th February
2015 stating that he cannot guarantee ‘security’ during the elections which
led to the postponement of the elections from 14th February to 28th
March 2015. This postponement led to a state of uncertainty in Nigeria and
caused huge losses for the country running into several billions of naira. In a desperate attempt to
frustrate investigations into the alleged missing $2.2 billion, the former
NSA instituted a suit against the federal government asking for his passport
to travel abroad for ‘medical’ reasons. Clearly, if the NSA has gotten his
passport back, Nigeria would not have seen his break light and that would
mean the end of any investigations, prosecution and possible recovery of the
missing $2.2 billion. Even the respected New York times were co-opted into
the saga when they wrote an article on 18th November 2015 in
support of ‘respecting’ a subsisting court order to issue Dasuki
with his passport ostensibly to enable him escape justice. One wonders what
business the New York times has in the internal affairs of Nigeria. Is it
fair to say that no Nigerian newspaper would dare ask the government of the
United States to release a suspect under investigations for a missing $2.2
billion? With the on-going arrests,
investigations and prosecution on the missing $2.2 billion, it is clear that
the Nemesis of corruption in Nigeria, the father of anti-corruption in Africa
and a leading light in the global war against corruption, our own President
Muhammadu Buhari has fired the first shot against
corruption. Although I don’t claim to have a crystal ball to see through the
mind of President Muhammadu Buhari and read his
plans about the on-going armsgate corruption
scandal nor do I want to pre-empt the ultimate decision of the courts, I am
absolutely certain that the following are going to happen: -
The looters of the $2.2
billion will be charged before a court of competent jurisdiction -
The looters will refund
the very last unspent kobo from this fraud -
The looters will be
prosecuted and some of them will definitely go to jail However, this is only
the beginning as there are definitely more to come. Let us all stay tuned. Apart
from the Armsgate scandal, Nigerians are waiting to
see the unearthing of the alleged monumental fraud called ‘FUEL SUBSIDY’
which has jumped from N300 billion to a ridiculous N1.5 trillion within 3
years under former President Jonathan. Indeed, President Buhari
deserves the support and prayers of all well-meaning Nigerians in his genuine
and sincere plans to rid Nigeria of the cankerworm of corruption. |