Revelations On Looting: You Can’t Take Up Sambo Dasuki and Leave Jonathan

Several high-profile Nigerians are facing charges as part of a drive against corruption but there are complaints by the opposition that the government is settling old political scores and flouting due process.

President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to recoup the “mind-boggling” sums of public fund stolen under the previous administrations to fulfill his campaign pledge to Nigerians that he would end graft...

Now the government has revealed that just 55 people stole more than N1.3trillion between 2006 and 2013, thus leaving Nigeria in the lurch as the economy is struggling to survive.

But it is former national security advisor Sambo Dasuki who has become the key figure in the anti-corruption campaign. The former Army Colonel is accused of looting billions of dollars that were aimed at buying weapons and equipment for troops fighting Boko Haram Islamists.

Billions are alleged to have been diverted instead to members of Goodluck Jonathan’s PDP to fund his failed re-election campaign.

Dasuki was granted bail last month but has been kept in custody without access to his legal counsel as he awaits the start of three trials, his lawyer Joseph Daudu told a court in Abuja on Wednesday.

Dauda later claimed Buhari was reverting to his old autocratic habits from his days as military ruler.

“He (Buhari) emphasised he was a changed man, open to democratic principals. But interfering with the court system, trying to find your own rule of law, is not good,” he told AFP at his office.

“It makes the outcome suspect.”

But prosecutor Oladipo Okpeseyi denied any impropriety. “The federal government has obeyed every order made in respect of this case. We are not acting illegally in any way whatsoever.”

Buhari’s own comments about Dasuki and two other cases involving the pro-Biafra activist Nnamdi Kanu and the Shiite Muslim leader Ibrahim Zakzaky are very instructive.

He told reporters in December the men should be kept in custody because they had committed “atrocities” against the the people of Nigeria, and told the Judges to put Nigeria above individuals.

Buhari was voted into power in 2015 after vowing to stamp out corruption and usher in a new era.

And with the prosecution of Dasuki — a powerful member of Jonathan’s administration — the former head of state could yet be dragged into the case.

“The national security advisor will normally carry out the instructions of his president,” one of the lawyers representing Dasuki in court, Ahmed Raji, told AFP.

“You cannot talk about this matter without talking about President Jonathan.”