Dasuki authorised payment of $40m to Jonathan’s cousin’s company – witness
Former national security adviser (NSA), retired Col. Sambo Dasuki PHOTO: NAN
A prosecution witness, Ibrahim Mahir, has testified that retired Col. Sambo Dasuki authorised the payment of 40 million dollars in favour of One Plus Holdings.
Mahir made this known when he testified in the case of Azibaola Roberts, cousin to former President Goodluck Jonathan at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday.
He said that Dasuki, a former National Security Adviser (NSA), instructed him to prepare a payment mandate of 40 million dollars in favour of the company.
Roberts and his wife Stella were arraigned on June 8 on a seven-count charge of money laundering.
Mahir, who was the first prosecution witness, told the court that Dasuki had endorsed a memo to him with details of the company’s account.
“On Aug. 20, 2014, the NSA endorsed a memo to me which originated from the director of finance and administration in the office of the NSA giving bank details of a company called One Plus.
“The memo also gave details of the purpose for which the company was to be paid the sum of 40 million dollars.
“The NSA instructed me to prepare payment and my understanding of that was that I should prepare the payment mandate for One Plus for his signature.
“After I got the memo, I prepared the payment mandate, sent it to him, he signed and sent it back to me.
“The subsequent necessary action was for me to countersign, which I did and I sent it to the CBN for payment,” Mahir said.
Earlier, Roberts’ lead counsel, Mr Chris Uche (SAN), had applied for a short adjournment.
Uche said the adjournment would give him time to meet with his client to prepare his defence.
He said that when bail was granted, his team had difficulties in perfecting the bail conditions, adding that the conditions were only perfected last week.
He said they needed more time to prepare their defence because there were some documents that they needed to subpoena from the office of the NSA.
Uche also sighted indisposition as part of the reasons his team was asking for an adjournment.
The prosecuting counsel, Mr Sylvanus Tahir, however, objected to the application on the grounds that they had a witness already in court who was stopped from going on lesser hajj on account of the trial.
Tahir said that they had prevailed on the witness to postpone his trip and not allowing him to give his testimony would amount to a waste of effort.
On the issue of indisposition, Tahir said the defence had about 19 other lawyers on the team and without the lead counsel, trial could commence.
The judge, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba, agreed with the prosecution that trial should commence since the defence had sufficient time to prepare their defence.
Diimgba adjourned the case till July 4 and July 5 for continuation of trial.
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4 Comments
DASUKI, THE TOP THIEF, NEEDS TO FACE FIRING SQUAD MILITARY STYLE. HE IS BOTH A TRAITOR AND A THIEF.
Is the CBN the private bank for DASUKI? This revelation is unbelievable ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
This may be a tip of the ice berg with regards to events in the CBN! The regulator!
I guess he was just following instructions. Somehow, the buck stops on his desk, why? Dasuki said this, Dasuki said that, Dasuki ordered this and that…. Who was Dasuki taking orders from??? Was he acting on his own whims and caprices? Who will bell the cat? Perhaps he would have resigned honorably and distanced himself from such atrocities. As an adult, he can clearly differentiate between right and wrong.
Then, what was wrong with the order of things? I guess we already had (and still have) checks in place to prevent abuse of power, what added measures need to be put in place?
This shows (once again) that when it is time to share our commonwealth, the looters are very united. However, when they are called to answer for their actions, they begin play the religious or ethnic card and want to divide the nation using mainly people whom have been robbed of their commonwealth. Many a times, I have read statements like “It is our oil money, can you steal what is in your backyard?”. SMH
We will review and take appropriate action.