$9.3m Arms Scandal: APC Asks Jonathan To Clarify Deal

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Thursday, September 18th, 2014

By Funmilayo Omidiji

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has challenged President Goodluck Jonathan to clarify circumstances surrounding the $9.3 million arms deal cash impounded in South Africa which is the latest in a series of global ridicule to which the present administration has subjected the country and her people.

APC Interim Spokesperson, Lai Mohammed

In a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party called on the National Assembly to launch an urgent investigation into the issue, saying silence of the peoples’ representatives on the issue was deafening, unfathomable and unacceptable.

The statement said there was no doubt that the President was at the centre of the whole issue, considering the treatment given to the plane and its cargo, since the jet departed from the Presidential wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, away from the reach of the Nigerian Customs Service which could not have cleared the plane and its passengers.

”It is absolutely urgent for President Jonathan to clear the air on this alleged off-the-shelf equipment or arms purchase, which runs against all known protocol for such purchases anywhere in the world. Military equipment and weapons are not bean cakes to be purchased by the road side. There are globally-acceptable protocols for such purchases by governments, otherwise what differentiates a government from an insurgent group that is shopping for arms?

”Is the Jonathan Administration not aware that the UN General Assembly on April 2nd 2013 adopted a landmark Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) precisely to regulate the international trade in conventional weapons by avoiding the kind of road-side purchase that the Nigerian government is said to have been involved in? Though the ATT has not come into effect, the fact that Nigeria is among the few countries to have signed and ratified the treaty shows that the country is concerned by unregulated arms trade,” APC said.

The party argued the resort to ”procedural error” to explain away the whole issue could not work, because Nigerian authorities cannot pretend not to be aware that currency brought into or taken from South Africa is monitored by law, and that anyone bringing into that country more than R25,000 in South African currency or U$10,000 or the equivalent thereof in foreign currency must declared such.

The opposition described the ”procedural error” defence as an alibi and those behind it “being too clever by half”, citiing the case of Jigawa state’s Governor, Sule Lamido’s son,.who was convicted for not declaring $50,000 dollars at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport?

In the spirit of fairness, the party disclosed it has decided to give Mr. President and his government the opportunity to make urgent clarifications bothering on the real purpoase $9.3 million- over N1.5 billon meant for, which arm of the government or security force does the money belong to, who appropriated it and for what purpose, why was the money being ferried in cash by the same government that has been spending promoting a cashless policy and wether the cash was meant to avoid a paper trail for the transaction, an act the party affirmed it was illegal.

”Mr. President, we are aware that each arm of security has an account with the CBN for the purpose of arms purchase and such transactions are properly documented, so why was this not the case in this instance?

“Mr. President, why did it take your government all of 10 days to admit its involvement in this scandal, considering that the embarrassing incident happened since Sept. 5th and was not known until Sept. 15th? Does this saga not give credence to the widely held view that you are indeed benefitting from the the Boko Haram insurgency and that you have deliberately allowed it to escalate to this level?

”Mr. President, has this saga not confirmed the suspicion that your 2015 reelection bid has been factored into your handling of the Boko Haram insurgency? Has this saga not given more credence to revelations that the sponsors of Boko Haram are those closest to the President? Has this saga not finally confirmed that the President knows more than he is telling the nation about the sudden escalation of the Boko Haram insurgency, especially in the run up to the 2015 elections?

”Mr. President, has this saga not confirmed that powerful forces in your administration are all working in concert to use the Boko Haram insurgency to secure tenure extension for President Jonathan? Is not clear now why the Senate President infamously declared two days ago that election is not on the table since the country is in a state of war? Have we not been proven right in our declaration at the panel discussion in the British House of Commons on Sept. 8th 2014 that the Jonathan administration will attempt to cash in on the Boko Haram insurgency to postpone elections”? the opposition asked.

The statement alleged that answers to the questions raised would go a long way in explaining that Jonathan’s government was not clandestinely buying equipment and weapons to fuel the Boko Haram insurgency and then profit from its own act of perfidy.

In the meantime, the party has urged President Jonathan to caution his Spokesperson who had offered defence on the arms purchase scandal, that bodies such as CIA, FBI, Mossad and others did travel abroad with undeclared cash, adding that this was a clear violation of the laws of “their destination countries, to buy arms”.