A former Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe, has revealed that his office was funded monthly by the embattled former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.).
Okupe, who served under Jonathan from 2012 to 2015, said this on his official Twitter handle.
He, however, said he had nothing to do with the arms scam which cost the country over $15bn in stolen funds.
Okupe said, “I was not paid arms deal money. The NSA paid for the running of my office monthly from August 2012. Dasukigate was in 2014.I did not take part in the campaign.”
The former spokesman for Jonathan, however, received bashing from several of his followers online who wondered why his office should get security votes.
A Twitter user, Ojezs, asked, “You’re just implicating yourself. Is it the NSA office that employed you?”
Another user, Ayoola Ayodeji, wrote, “You probably mistake some of us for hungry people. A day will come when you won’t be able to sleep because poor people are outside your gate.”
In his response, Okupe wrote, “You guys are idiotic. You wait and pray for the innocent to be punished. It will not happen. You must think some of us are terrified.”
It had been reported in January that Okupe got at least N1.6bn off Dasuki in three shady cyber security contracts.
One of the contracts had instructions to hunt down unfriendly media websites with Distributed Denial of Service attacks.
It was believed to be a project conceived to shut down online media platforms perceived as friendly towards Muhammadu Buhari, the then presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2015 election.
The other contract was to intercept all optic fibre cables landing in Nigeria. The third was a passive mass and targeted GSM interception that had the ability to decrypt ciphers and operate undetected.
The contracts that were allegedly awarded to Okupe’s cronies, reinforces claims that the former NSA merely doled out cash and contracts to cronies and political associates and violated procurement regulations in the process.
Meanwhile, a former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is expected to be grilled by detectives at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Monday (today).
It was learnt that even though the EFCC operatives who stormed his home last Friday had left, detectives were still keeping surveillance on his home located at 5, Zuma Close, Aso Drive.
Fani-Kayode, who was the spokesperson for the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation, during the 2015 presidential election, was invited by the EFCC for receiving N840m during the build-up to the election.
According to documents sighted by our correspondent, the money was deposited into Fani-Kayode’s Zenith Bank account, Maitama Branch with number 1004735721 on February 19, 2015.
The account has since been frozen by the EFCC.
The EFCC has invited a former Minister of Aviation, Fani-Kayode, for receiving N840m from the Director of Finance, Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation, Senator Nenadi Usman.
Fani-Kayode, who was the Director of Publicity for Jonathan’s campaign organisation, was said to have received the money in January, 2015.
The money was said to have emanated from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
In a letter signed by Mr. Mohammed Umar Abba on behalf of the Acting Chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, the commission explained that Fani-Kayode’s name featured prominently in the alleged scam and he was needed to clarify some issues.
The letter read in part, “The commission is investigating a case of criminal conspiracy, fraud and money laundering involving Joint Trust Dimensions Limited which you featured prominently. In view of the above, you are requested to kindly report for an interview on Monday by 10am.”
The money, which Fani-Kayode has confessed to receiving, was said to have emanated from the account of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The former minister, however, said he did not know that the money emanated from the CBN as he received the money from Nenadi Usman who was the Director of Finance of the campaign.
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