Sambo Dasuki And Other Dilemmas
FORMER National Security Adviser
Sambo Dasuki was a very powerful man
in a government where power and
money gloated from up high at Nigeria’s
problems.
But how good is he at gambling, poker,
or common sense? Not very, it would
appear.
Last week, the retired colonel was
ordered to be arrested for allegedly
siphoning over $2.1 billion in funds
meant for arming the military. His new
troubles were on top of ongoing charges
of treasonable felony, in the middle of
which he was battling to travel abroad
for medical treatment.
[A side note: Left to me, nobody from the
level of State legislator/commissioner to
the President should be allowed to travel
abroad for medical treatment within
four years of leaving public office. That
is the length of one term of office. You
may import entire hospitals and legions
of specialist doctors, if you wish, but you
should not travel abroad to them.]
Such a law would have taken care of the
likes of Mr. Dasuki, to begin with. In any
event, his travel battles were pre-empted
when the report of the interim
presidential panel investigating arms
procurement since 2007 was made
public.
It is unlikely Dasuki will be treating any
ailments anywhere soon but within the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, of which he
was NSA until six months ago.
It may sound like ancient history now,
but it was only last January that Dasuki
led the sponsored clamor for Nigeria’s
national elections to be postponed for at
least six months. All indications being
that Mr. Goodluck Jonathan would lose
the presidential election, parties and
interest groups sympathetic to the
Peoples Democratic Party—in addition to
the military and security agencies under
the direction of Mr. Dasuki—actively
sought that postponement.
Mr. Dasuki went to Chatham House in
London to make the case for
postponement, using the excuse of
insufficient readiness of the electoral
commission. It wasn’t true: fear—not the
truth—was what inspired the former
soldier. The security chiefs reportedly
argued that they did not want to dilute
their focus on the security challenge in
the northeast in order to provide
security for the elections.
Sambo and the hawks got their wish. The
elections were postponed for six weeks,
during which, they said, Boko Haram
would be vanquished. The same army
which had found it impossible to cope
with the militants, the same army whose
foot soldiers had continued to cry out
about being poorly-equipped implied
that the job would be easy.
Having in Chatham House insulted
Nigerian soldiers as “cowards”, Sambo
traveled around with a fresh coat of
snake oil on his tongue, telling the press
that within those six weeks, “All known
Boko Haram camps will be taken out…
They will be dismantled…”
Asked how, he said, “…We are having
additional equipment coming in. We are
better equipped and better placed now
to take on that thing…”
Dasuki was lying, of course: the time
being purchased was designed to boost
Mr. Jonathan’s electoral hopes, not
enhance Nigeria’s security. Eight months
after that dubious six-week war, a
presidential committee set up at the end
of August provided confirmation last
week that funds meant for equipping the
army were not used for that purpose.
That seems to tie in with what many
soldiers, some of whom were then court-
martialed, have said in the past few
years.
Actually, some of the conclusions of the
presidential panel required no panel at
all. In a commentary in this column on
September 2014 and February 2015, I
called for Nigeria’s recent defence and
security spending to be probed, pointing
out the vast budgets in the sector in the
preceding 10 years alone, in addition to
about N550bn by the Office of the
National Security Adviser in the
Jonathan Years.
The presidential panel listed anomalies
that include $2.1bn in extra-budgetary
interventions; $2.3 billion in failed
contracts between 2007 and 2015, and
N3.8 billion in cash paid to a company
allegedly without evidence of any
contract.
Hearing the arrest order against him,
Mr. Dasuki did not even pause to assess
the poker, I mean…deck of cards in his
hands. In a press statement, he
immediately dismissed the panel’s
findings as ambiguous, presumptuous
and baseless, and warned he would be
waiting in court to defeat the
government.
“The good thing is that some of the key
actors in the present administration
were part of the past process being
viciously challenged,” he said, appearing
to be ready to throw others, including
his former boss, under the speeding
train.
“There was no contract awarded or
equipment bought without approval
from the then President and
Commander-In-Chief,” he declared.
Mr. Jonathan’s government was never
the most coherent, and between Dasuki
and the former president, a sad
reminder was provided last week.
Speaking in the United States, where the
system is milking him for information,
Mr. Jonathan tried to play the ping-pong
ball with a baseball bat.
“I did not award any $2 billion contract
for procurement of weapons,” he said at
a public event. “Where did the money
come from…I did not award a contract
of $2billion for procurement of
weapons”.
Perhaps he didn’t award, but should
have. Perhaps some other people did, but
shouldn’t have. The good thing is that a
long-overdue examination of Nigeria’s
procurement malpractices may now find
public expression.
If so, it must be a thorough and just
exercise, and should include the military,
security and intelligence communities
spanning at least the past 10 years. The
rot did not begin under Mr. Jonathan,
and while there is evidence that the
NSA’s office gulped nearly $3bn between
2011 and 2015, Mr. Dasuki did not
invent that office, and he did not arrive
there until 2012.
The pursuit of Nigeria’s (recent) looters
must be pursued on the basis of justice,
not vengeance. That is why there was no
need for the government to have
advertised Mr. Dasuki last week as
anything other than one of several
suspects who should have been arrested
and processed for trial together
according to the law.
Instead, Mr. Dasuki was being
figuratively “paraded” before the public
and the press in the nauseating tradition
of Nigeria’s criminal justice system
where a suspect is brought before the
press as though he has already been
convicted. If the government is sure of
its case, and of its anti-corruption claims
—and if an underlying masterplan is not
to deliberately lose a particular trial—
the right place is before a judge under
the nation’s laws.
Hopefully, the Buhari government
understands it must demonstrate every
case in court. Government spokesmen
can say whatever they wish, but an
official statement, no matter how
eloquently it might be crafted, does not
substitute for a carefully and
competently-prepared prosecution.
Yes, looting Nigeria has been extremely
easy for its practitioners, requiring
ruthlessness rather than brains.
Recovering those funds and putting the
thieves in jail to rot away will take far
more than simply identifying their
wrongs.
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