Revealed: Asari Dokubo was in the Jet caught smuggling $9.3m?

Explain Asari Dokubo’s role in the
$9.3m cash-for-arms scandal to
Nigerians; APC tells Presidency
The All Progressives Congress (APC)
has asked President Goodluck
Jonathan to explain to Nigerians
what Mujaheed Asari Dokubo, was
doing on the plane that illegally
ferried US$9.3 million to South
Africa, where Asari Dokubo, another
Nigerian and an Israeli were
arrested, according to a published
report.
In a statement issued in Abuja on
Wednesday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the
party said since the federal
government has taken ownership of
the funds by saying the National
Security Adviser (NSA) issued the
end-user certificate for the arms
purchase, it stands to reason that
the same government will know the
involvement of all those aboard the
plane.

APC said the questions become
pertinent because even the NSA,
who issued the end-user agreement
for the purchase, does not and
cannot purchase arms for any of the
armed services. The Service Chiefs
have separate budgets from the NSA
for arms purchase:
"Under our Constitution, the
NSA is an adviser and has no
executive powers to deploy
troops from any of the services
or purchase arms for them.
That the arms purported to be
purchased from South Africa
were ordered from the office of
the NSA is nothing but a mere
fabrication, and raises serious
questions about the motive for
the purchase.

" Nigerians will therefore like to
know on whose behalf Asari
Dokubo was purchasing arms.
This is very crucial because
Asari Dokubo has been
threatening that Nigeria will not
know peace if his benefactor,
President Jonathan, is not re-
elected . Therefore, Nigerians
will like to know whether he has
started stockpiling arms to
make his threat a reality, since
elections are due in a few
months’ time.

"If these arms are meant to fight
insurgency, as the government has
claimed, what is Asari Dokubo’s
business purchasing arms for the
Nigerian military, if indeed they
were for the military?

"Does it not occur to the Nigerian
government that this man who once
took arms against the state may not
have jettisoned his sinister plan
against the same state? Which
country will ever allow a man who
once carried arms against the state
to now be purchasing arms for the
same state ? Even if it is true that he
is purchasing the arms for the state,
what prevents him from also using
the opportunity to purchase arms
for his own sinister motive? Could
this be why Asari Dokubo has been
talking publicly and confidently,
without official censure, that
President Jonathan must be re-
elected or Nigeria will not know
peace again?" the party queried.

"…on Tuesday, we again asked
President Jonathan to come clean on
the US$9.3 million and US$5.7
million deals. We also asked him to
tell Nigerians the identity of the two
Nigerians who were on the plane
that illegally ferried money to South
Africa. Now that the Nigerians are
known, and they are the President’s
men, the story has taken a new
dimension,” it said.

APC said since those who claim to
be fighting for Nigeria’s unity may
actually be the ones working against
it, since those who lay claim to
patriotism may actually be any but
patriotic, it is more urgent now,
than ever, for the National Assembly
to take these cash-for-arms deals
seriously, instead of dismissing the
concerns of Nigerians on the basis
of some rules as the House of
Representatives has glibly done.

The party commended the media for
keeping the story alive and for
working hard to unearth the identity
of the Nigerians aboard the ill-fated
plane that illegally flew money into
another country in violation of that
country’s laws and all known tenets
of decency.

APC called on the media, in
pursuance of its constitutional role
of a watchdog, not to relent in
exposing the circumstances
surrounding the cash-for-arms
deals, which have seriously
embarrassed Nigeria in the comity
of nations and which have the
potential to threaten Nigeria’s unity,
going by the latest revelations.