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Friday, March 29, 2024

$2.1 Billion Arms Deal: DSS Moves Dasuki To EFCC

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The Department of State Services (DSS) on Wednesday moved the immediate past National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), where he was grilled by operatives of the commission over the $2.1 billion arms procurement deal.

After it had laid siege to his residence for almost a month, DSS took Dasuki into custody in Abuja on Tuesday for interrogation and detention in connection with the arms deal.

However, an EFCC source confirmed that DSS transferred him to the commission where interrogation continued.

It was however not clear if he was taken back to the DSS headquarters or detained at the EFCC facility overnight.

The embattled former NSA had already been charged by the federal government for illicit possession of firearms and money laundering but was granted bail by a Federal High Court in Abuja.

The court also granted him permission to travel overseas for medical treatment but was prevented from doing so by DSS personnel who barricaded his residence last month.

The federal government has since asked the court to withdraw the bail it granted him in order to detain him.

Meanwhile, a former governor of Sokoto State, Atahiru Bafarawa, and the Chairman, Daar Communications Plc, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, who were invited by EFCC on Tuesday, were still in the commission’s custody on Wednesday.

THISDAY gathered that Bafarawa and Dokpesi, who are also being investigated in connection with the arms procurement deal, were granted administrative bail under very stringent terms.

Despite meeting the bail conditions, the EFCC was said to have obtained a holding warrant from a Magistrate’s Court to keep Dokpesi in detention.

However, Dokpesi has explained that the N2.1 billion he received from the office of the NSA during the administration of Goodluck Jonathan was payment for media and political campaigns for the 2015 general election.

According to the News magazine, Dokpesi, in a statement released by his company on Wednesday, explained that he was invited by the chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, to “shed more light on some payments that were made to him through the office of the erstwhile National Security Adviser to the former president, Goodluck Jonathan”.

“Dokpesi explained to the EFCC officials that the N2.1 billion that he collected from the former NSA was payment for publicity and media political campaigns during the 2015 general election,” the paper quoted the statement as saying.

“Dokpesi made his statement on the various media exposures and campaign transactions which were dutifully carried out based essentially on contractual obligations/relationship,” the statement added.

Following an interim report released by a presidential committee investigating the procurement of arms from 2007 to date, which revealed extra-budgetary spending of up to N643.8 billion and a further $2.2 billion, the EFCC set up a special panel to probe how the monies were spent.

The investigation is still ongoing and more senior officials in the last administration are expected to be quizzed on the disbursement and spending of the monies.

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