Former National Security Adviser, NSA, Sambo Dasuki, was on Tuesday morning arrested by operatives of the State Security Servicers, SSS, after a prolonged siege to his Abuja residence.
Dasuki, who was arrested and charged to court in July on illegal possession of firearms, was granted bail by Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Abuja, to travel abroad for treatment but this was scuttled by the SSS laying siege to his home, following a report that implicated him in several fraudulent arms deals while in office.
Not even the insistence by the judge that the former NSA be allowed to travel was enough to get the SSS to vacate the residence.
Dasuki’s latest arrest could be linked with the interim report submitted by the panel set up by the Office of the National Security Adviser to probe past defence budgets, especially with regards to arms purchases to prosecute the Boko Haram insurgency in the North east.
According to the panel, which presented its interim report last month, a massive sleaze was uncovered to the tune of more than N300billion in phoney deals under Dasuki. This prompted President Muhammadu Buhari to order the arrest of those indicted.
In a new twist to the Dasuki saga, The Cable, a popular online newspaper, on Monday revealed that Jonathan approved the disbursement of more than $2 billion unbudgeted fund in nine months to the former NSA, a revelation that is sure to further work against Dasuki.
According to the newspaper, the former president approved another extra budgetary payment of N40 billion by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to the office of the NSA, in 2014.
Quoting documents it claimed have been made available to it, The Cable gave the breakdown of the extra budgetary payments approved by Jonathan for Dasuki to include “$1 billion on March 27, 2014; $200 million on April 9, 2014; $600 million on May 5, 2014; and, same day, $200 million following a request for $250 million.”
It said that another sum of $100 million was again collected by Dasuki from the NNPC in January 12, 2015, bringing the total to $2.1 billion.