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Nigeria: Former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki accused of stealing billions in arms deals
Nigeria’s former national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, has been arrested for allegedly stealing billions of dollars meant to buy weapons to fight Boko Haram Islamist extremists rampaging across northeast Nigeria.
“Thousands of needless Nigerian deaths would have been avoided” if the money had been properly spent, Femi Adesina, an adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, said in a statement Tuesday night.
The arrest order follows an interim report by a presidential committee that uncovered fraudulent and fictitious arms contracts amounting to US$5.4 billion, Adesina said. The committee is investigating arms procurement since 2007 as part of the fight against endemic corruption that Buhari has waged since taking office in May.
Buhari has also ordered the arrest of other former high-ranking officials linked to the scandal, said Adesina.
Dasuki, a key adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011, is accused of awarding “phantom contracts” to buy 12 helicopters, 4 fighter jets and munitions worth US$2.9 billion that never were supplied. Buhari fired him in July.
Dasuki denied any wrongdoing in an interview with the PR Nigeria news agency, and said he was proud that in the final months under his watch Nigeria’s military ousted Boko Haram from its self-declared Islamic caliphate in the country’s northeast. That offensive came as Jonathan faced elections.
Soldiers told reporters that they were going into battle without sufficient equipment and ammunition. Critics had questioned the ineffectiveness of Nigeria’s once-powerful military forces despite an annual defense budget of between US$5 billion and US$6 billion, supplemented last year by a loan of US$1 billion.
Nigeria’s social media buzzed with the news Wednesday. “The war against Boko Haram under Jonathan was only a money-making machine for Sambo Dasuki, service chiefs and defense contractors,” charged A. S. Aruwa.
“Beyond corruption, Dasuki should be charged for high treason: Men, women and children died because their armed forces could not defend them,” added D. Olusegun.
Dasuki has been under house arrest for more than a week despite a Federal High Court order allowing him to travel abroad for medical care. The court had allowed Dasuki bail after he pleaded innocent to other charges of money-laundering, involving more than US$423,000 found in cash, and illegal possession of arms seized at 2 of his homes.
