SAN FRANCISCO, October 28, (THEWILL) – The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress has condemned former President Goodluck Jonathan for defending a former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, who is on trial for mis-use of military funds (Dasukigate).
In a statement by Joe Igbokwe, its Publicity Secretary, the party said Jonathan’s claims had proved beyond doubts that he knew everything about the arms purchase scandal as well as other corruption cases that happened in his regime.
“Even as we concede that Jonathan is on a desperate bid to rehabilitate himself, we wouldn’t believe that a former president should be so contemptuous of the intelligence of Nigerians as to give the kind of defence he gave to Sambo Dasuki,” the statement read.
“We wonder what Jonathan makes of the horrid details that are emanating from the Dasukigate issue with shocking evidences, confessions and even refunds made by those that participated in that monumental corruption.
“To claim that Dasuki and his partners did not steal the arms purchase fund reveals the inner beliefs of Jonathan and explains that he is intrinsically webbed to corruption.
“Even while he is perceived as pathologically corrupt and his regime seen as the most corrupt in Nigeria’s chequered history, one would have expected Jonathan to be cautious in seeking to advance very childish and inadmissible exculpation of his subordinates for glaring acts of corruption.
“We had expected that Jonathan would have striven to water down the lowly impression held of him by Nigerians and the international community by not deciding to be so patronising to clear cases of corruption by his subordinates. But with each day, Jonathan continues to baffle by his chameleonic acts.
“By Jonathan’s cheap defence of Sambo Dasuki, we believe time has come for the security agencies to pick up Jonathan to tell the nation all that he knows of the many cases of corruption that happened under him.
“We don’t believe anything shields Jonathan from prosecution for corruption as we believe it is becoming indefensible for Jonathan to pretend he was innocent of the corrupt acts of his subordinates.
“While we condemn Jonathan’s cheeky defence of Dasuki, even in the face of monumental damning evidences, we want to state that the anti-corruption war is incomplete until Jonathan is prosecuted for he continually proves, by such defence of his corrupt subordinates, that he knew everything that transpired in his corruption-ridden regime.”
THEWILL recalls that Jonathan, while addressing a gathering on youth entrepreneurship at the Oxford Union, in the United Kingdom said it was impossible for Dasuki to have stolen $2.2 billion as claimed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
“They said the National Security Adviser stole $2.2 billion. I don’t believe somebody can just steal $2.2 billion. We bought warships, we bought aircraft, we bought lots of weapons for the army and so on and so forth and you are still saying 2.2 billion, so where did we get the money to buy all those things?”
Story by Oputah David
