Sacked DSS boss, Daura
The
acting president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, has reportedly directed the
EFCC boss, Ibrahim Magu, and the new DSS boss, to recover the missing
N80 billion from the sacked Daura.
The anti-corruption war being waged by
the President Muhammadu Buhari administration got a big boost on Tuesday
after the removal from office of the former Director General of the
Department of State Services, Lawal Daura.
Already, the Acting President, Prof Yemi
Osinbajo, has settled the rift between the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission,EFCC, and the Department of State Services, DSS, which had,
under Daura, stood against Ibrahim Magu and his agency from
investigating or arresting top security chiefs, suspected to have been
involved in large scale cash movements.
Apart from standing against the confirmation of Magu as the
substantive chairman of the EFCC, Daura also discredited the EFCC boss
and blocked his agency from arresting former heads of the DSS and the
National Intelligence Agency, NIA, in November last year.
According to Daura, no other agency had any right to probe into
the expenditure of the DSS, NIA and other security outfits, as doing so,
was against the law establishing them. But Osinbajo on Tuesday cleared
the way for all the officials of security agencies who had been fingered
in the disappearance of about N80 billion last year, to be investigated
and possibly charged to court.
A top source close to the Presidency confirmed to Saturday Vanguard
that Osinbajo had given full support to the EFCC and the DSS to trace
the whereabouts of the cash and retrieve it without further delay.
“It is in connection with the recovery of the huge cash that
the Acting President met twice with the acting heads of DSS and EFCC for
two consecutive days and ordered them to work together in order to
trace and recover the money from whoever might have taken a penny out of
it.
“You can see that the two heads are actually moving to
actualise the directive of the presidency and Nigerians will soon hear
of the outcome of the synergy between the two agencies headed by Magu
and Seifeya,” the source explained yesterday.
Top on the list of cash to be investigated by the DSS in
conjunction with the EFCC is $289,202,382 (N57.8bn) given to the
National Intelligence Agency and another N20 billion, which was
reportedly handed over to the DSS prior to the 2015 election.
However, while part of the $289 million given to the NIA was later
found in an Ikoyi apartment in Lagos, nothing has been heard of the
cash given to the DSS, which prompted the EFCC to launch a probe last
November but was stalled when Daura unleashed his men to chase away the
EFCC operatives.
Saturday Vanguard learnt that Thursday’s invitation of the former
head of the DSS, Mr. Ita Ekpenyong, by the EFCC was not an indictment on
him but to enable him to share with EFCC vital information relating to
cash left behind by him.
It was gathered that Daura never wanted the information to be
released to the EFCC while he was in charge given the fact that the cash
reportedly left behind by Ekpenyong disappeared within a week of his
departure from the agency.
On the other hand, the NIA cash, which the former head of the
agency claimed was ‘given to him to carry out some unspecified security
assignments’, is to be pursued to a logical conclusion and all those
found culpable to face trial to serve as a deterrent.
Source: Vanguard
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