The former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, on Wednesday said she transferred $322m (N64.148bn) from the
looted funds recovered from the former Head of State, the late Gen. Sani
Abacha, to the Office of the National Security Adviser for military operations
in the North-East.
The ex-minister, in a statement by her Media
Adviser, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, said the transfer of the fund was approved after a
committee, set up by former President Goodluck Jonathan, gave approval for the
use of the fund.
She explained that based on the decision of the
committee, she personally requested that part of the recovered fund be used for
security operations while the rest be channelled to developmental purposes.
The minister stated that she decided to release the amount to the ONSA
following various accusations from some quarters that she was starving the
military of funds to prosecute the war on terrorism.
There was a report on Wednesday that the former
minister diverted N61.4bn from the Abacha loot to the office of the former NSA,
Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.).
Okonjo-Iweala was reported to have written a
letter to Jonathan requesting the transfer of the fund to the NSA office.
The former finance minister had, last week, said
she had nothing to do with the $2.1bn arms probe.
Responding to a statement by the Edo State
Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, the ex-finance minister had said she had
“absolutely nothing” to do with the arms purchase scam.
But the statement by Nwabuikwo explained that as
captured in the memo, Okonjo-Iweala insisted that the fund be deployed after
satisfying three conditions.
The statement reads in part, “As part of the
campaign of falsehood against the former Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala by Edo Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, and other powerful and corrupt
interests, another baseless story has been published by some online media.
“To achieve their evil propaganda objective of
tarnishing her name, these evil elements have distorted the contents of a memo,
dated January 20, 2015, in which the former Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, responded to a request by the former National Security Adviser, Col.
Ibrahim Dasuki (retired), for funds to prosecute the terror war against Boko
Haram.
“The central responsibility of the Minister of
Finance is to find sources of funding for the financing of approved national
priorities such as security, job creation and infrastructure.
“It will be recalled that throughout 2014, there
were public complaints by the military hierarchy to President Goodluck Jonathan
about the inadequacy of funds to fight the anti-terror war in the North-East,
resulting in Boko Haram making gains and even taking territories.
“A lot of the criticism was directed at the
Federal Ministry of Finance under Dr Okonjo-Iweala, which was accused of not
doing enough to find funds for the operations.”
She added, “It was about this time that some new
Abacha funds of about $322m were returned with another $700m still expected to
be returned.
“Former President Jonathan set up a committee,
comprising the former Minister of Justice, former NSA and the former Minister
of Finance to determine how best to use both the returned and expected funds
for development.
“The NSA made a case for using the returned funds
for urgent security operations, since, she noted, there could not be any
development without peace and security.
“Based on this, a decision was taken to deploy
about $322m for the military operations, while the expected $700m would be
applied to development programmes as originally conceived.
“Following the discussions and based on the
urgency of the NSA’s memo, Dr Okonjo-Iweala requested the President to approve
the transfer of the requested amount to the NSA’s Office for the specified
purposes.”
The statement said the attempt to link the
ex-minister’s name to any misuse of these funds for any purpose other than
security “is totally false and cannot stand.”
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