The Dasuki affair

Sambo Dasuki is a retired colonel of the Nigerian Army. A son of power and privilege, he is a scion of the powerful Sokoto Caliphate and House of Uthman Dan Fodio, with his father Ibrahim Dasuki a former Sultan of Sokoto installed in office by former Military President Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) and dethroned by General Abacha’s draconian regime. President Muhammadu Buhari, we all recall, served in that Abacha regime for almost its entire tenure as chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), an (almost) autonomous government within the government of Abacha. Sambo Dasuki was of course one of the powerful clique of (then) young military officers popularly referred to as “IBB Boys” who helped IBB and other senior military officers to overthrow the ineffectual civilian regime of President Shehu Shagari, and when IBB and his friend General Aliyu Gusau fell out with then head of state (Buhari), helped to shove him and his deputy, Babatunde Idiagbon, out of office as Babangida took the power for himself and ruled for the next eight years.

Sambo Dasuki has subsequently served as CEO of the National Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) and, until recently, as National Security Adviser (NSA) under former President Goodluck Jonathan. Dasuki will probably hope now that he left Nigeria on May 28, 2015, just before his former boss handed over power to Buhari! He had the sympathy of many, including this columnist, when the Directorate of State Security (DSS) invaded his home and brought charges of possession of firearms against him – why would it be surprising if a retired colonel and NSA had some firearms in his custody and home? Anyone who believes in the rule of law and respect for the fundamental human rights of citizens would also have been disturbed when the security agencies refused court orders to allow Dasuki travel abroad for medical reasons, especially as those orders were based on particularly onerous conditions and sureties. It is difficult, however, to sympathise with Dasuki on the bases of the emerging allegations now popularly referred to as “Dasukigate”!

Without going into specific allegations which may be sub judice, it apparently seems that the office of the National Security Adviser under Dasuki may have been an occasional or even regular “Automated Teller Machine” (ATM) used to disburse billions of dollars and naira for sundry purposes, including regime media and public relations; political party funding; refunds of terrorism-related damages; reimbursement of alleged losses suffered by newspaper houses; and other miscellaneous purposes, including, if newspaper reports are to be believed, prayer! Some of the figures and purposes for which they were disbursed are scandalous and provide a much-needed insight into how Nigeria’s corrupt, prebendal state has functioned for decades! A media mogul is alleged to have received N2.1 billion for regime publicity; another newspaper don received almost N700 billion as refunds of terrorism-related damages and operational losses for numerous newspapers due to the activities of state security agencies; several leading politicians are said to have received multiple amounts for contact and mobilization; an ex-governor’s son received contracts for purchase of vehicles and motorcycles and sending some women to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage; and some gentleman and his company may have received billions of naira for unspecified spiritual activities!

I have always hoped that Nigeria’s political elite would one day self-destruct by breaching some of their “standard operating procedures” which have enabled the corrupt elite network survive unchallenged for decades – some of those SOPs include never exposing what their predecessors or even adversaries did with “security votes”, NNPC and other institutions which have become de facto slush funds for our rulers. That process of self-subversion may now be underway! The underlying issues in this matter are two-dimensional – first, the opacity and lack of transparency around the expenditure of so-called “security votes” spent completely at the discretion of presidents, governors and even local government chairmen; and second, the deployment of several institutions’ coffers (at the federal level –NNPC, NPA, NMA/NIMASA, CBN, FAAN and other “juicy” MDAS) as avenues for corrupt and unaccountable pay-offs, whether to fund political activities or to enrich the political elite and their cronies and associates.

Nigerian civil society must not allow this opportunity to waste. Rather than allow “Dasukigate” to be frittered away for political entertainment, we must leverage the disclosures to ensure a timely reform of the systems around “security votes” at federal, state and local government levels. Such reforms must require, at the very least, broad breakdown of heads of expenditure for such votes and a process of confidential parliamentary oversight over security spending, subject to a process of public release of details of spending at the end of each financial year. In addition, I would personally like to see a detailed audit of all the expenditure on security votes at federal and state levels since 1999, and a forensic examination of every single expenditure over N5 million at the federal ministry of finance, petroleum, defence, police, internal affairs, works, transport and aviation and at the CBN, security agencies and major parastatals earlier mentioned. The other imperative is for campaign finance reform to bring transparency to the sources of campaign funding of all the political parties since 1999 and going forward. Unless and until we force a reform of campaign finance in this country, our politics will remain dirty and perhaps even criminal!