President ‘Will spare Jonathan, Patience’
By Our Reporters
A number of several probes launched into the alleged looting under President Goodluck Jonathan have gathered enough evidence to proceed to trial, investigations by The Dream Daily have shown.
Consequently, some highly placed officials who served in the Jonathan administration may soon appear in court charged with fraud by themselves and serving as conduit pipes for higher authorities.
However, The Dream Daily learnt that the legal actions would only be launched against these former public officials if they fail to make full disclosure of the funds traced to them and return same to the coffers of the Federal Government in on-going clandestine negotiations.
It was also learnt that the indicted who willingly hand over stolen funds could be banned from holding public offices for a number of years or for life, depending on a number of factors.
Also, The Dream Daily can reveal that no charges will be brought against either former President Goodluck Jonathan or his wife, Dame Patience Jonathan, by the Federal Government. This, according to sources close to the investigations, “is to avoid the situation whereby the sanctity of the Office of the President is shattered by dragging a former occupant of the exalted office or his spouse in the opprobrium of an open trial for corruption.”
But there are worries over putting some of the former officials in open trial over national security issues during which sensitive security information might be revealed. Legal experts working on the probes are also in a dilemma over the other option of secret trials for some of the former officials, “which those to be charged would expectedly oppose as a ploy to jail them by unfair means, “throwing everything into a fiasco.”
“The trial of someone like the former NSA, Col. Sambo Dasuki, is a big headache for the government. As you know, he (Dasuki) has been charged to court. However, there is apprehension over how his trial will proceed. Although he has been charged with illegal procession of arms and ammunition, trying a former NSA in the open court poses potential danger to national security and so the government has to be careful because sensitive security information could be divulged during the open court session. I don’t’ know how this will go but one expects the government to seek a secret trial. It will be up to the court to decide that,” a source who pleaded anonymity told The Dream Daily.
Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari assured that some of those indicted in the corruption probes would appear in court “in a matter of weeks.”
Keeping Anti-Corruption War On Front Burner
In order to retain the momentum gained in the court of public opinion against corrupt practices allegedly committed by officials who served in the last federal administration, the Presidency, its officials and a handful of others “will continue to speak up on the issue the in the public space,” another source who does not want to be named also confided in The Dream Daily.
According to the source, “there are concerted efforts by critics of the President who are obvious sympathisers of the last government to change the public narrative from the fight against corruption to the economy. They want to force the President’s hands away from this goal to his economic blueprint and all that but the President will not be distracted or derailed by their antics. The fight against corruption will go on to a logical conclusion. “
However, sources said that Presidency officials may have been instructed “to tone down the rhetoric on probing the last government because of growing public opinion that the government is only about probe, probe all the time.”
It is in this light, according to sources, that the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, was recently quoted in the media as saying that the Buhari administration was not a government of probes only.
Garba Shehu said: “Let me say that officially, nobody is under probe, even Dr. Jonathan. People should not make mistakes about the fact that what is going on are routine investigations. These are matters that the President has found on the table.
“So, there is nothing like a probe. If Jonathan will be probed, you would have heard of, may be, an administrative panel of enquiry or judicial panel of enquiry. But it hasn’t come to that. These are matters of routine engagements of due process of law and order.
“President Buhari in his campaign said his government was not going to probe into the past. We are not probing but as a responsible government, you cannot bring to the table matters such as we are dealing with and then, the President will wave them off.”
“This is not a government of probes. It is a government of due process and law and order. President Buhari is dealing with the matters he has found on the table and he has no power under the constitution to wave them. If somebody had stolen Nigeria’s one billion dollars of oil, President Buhari is not authorised to wave it off under the law. He should ask questions. There is no probe going on now. People who are creating the spectre of probes in the country just want to create unnecessary fear.”
The Fight-back Is On Too…
Expectedly, officials who served with the Jonathan administration and perceived themselves as targets on the on-going anti-graft campaign are not sitting idly waiting to be picked upon. According to some lawyers who spoke with The Dream Daily, “with their names being mentioned all the time in the media by officials of the Buhari administration, the former officials are also getting ready to defend themselves against these corruption charges. You can be sure that many senior advocates of Nigeria are being lined up by the alleged corrupt ex-officials to battle this out in the courts.”
“Make no mistakes about it, it is going to be a long-drawn legal battle whether in the regular courts or the rumoured special court they say President Buhari wants to establish to try them,” a lawyer said.
In a recent statement, National Publicity Secretary of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), Lai Mohammed accused the past administration of looting at least N11.11 trillion. He listed the funds unaccounted for by the regime to include:
– N3.8 trillion Naira out of the N8.1 trillion earned from crude oil (2012-2015) withheld by NNPC
– $2.1 billion from Excess Crude Account unaccounted for
– Department of Petroleum Resources’ unremitted N109.7 billion royalty from oil firms
– $6 billion US dollars allegedly looted by some ministers of the last government
– 160 million barrels of crude worth $13.9 billion lost between 2009 and 2012
– $15 million from botched arms deal yet to be returned to Nigeria
– $13 billion in NLNG dividends mostly unaccounted for
– N30 billion rice waiver
– N183 billion unaccounted for at the Niger Delta Development Commission.
Justifying the on-going efforts to recover looted funds, anti-corruption war, the APC scribe stressed that “the government needs every kobo of the funds it can muster to bring about the change it has promised Nigerians.”
But the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did not take the allegation lying low as it promptly accused Mohammed of “creating imaginary looted funds” and asked President Buhari to call him “to order before he plunges the country into crisis with wild and unsubstantiated claims”.
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