Danjuma named in Panama Papers leaks
Like Pandora’s box, the extent of alleged corrupt deeds of prominent personalities all over the world who are being accused of engaging in fraudulent lodgment of heavy sums of money in secret accounts in tax havens across the globe, is yet to be fully comprehended.
Yesterday, an online medium named former Defence Minister, General Theophilus Danjuma, as the fourth Nigerian to be named in what has now been described as the biggest scam on the international financial scene.
The revelation of the General’s involvement in the global racket with which the wife of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, his predecessor in office, David Mark and former Delta State governor, James Ibori, have been linked, came as an anti-corruption watchdog, the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), urged the Federal Government to investigate all Nigerians included in the report.
ANEEJ in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Rev. David Ugolor said the Panama Papers expose has further showed how Politically Exposed Persons in the country have over the years been frittering the nation’s wealth to offshore safe havens to the detriment of the common Nigerians and wants the Federal Government to respond without any further delay in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption stance.
The statement said, “We are concerned about the silence of our government to this mind-boggling report. Since governments all over the world including the US, UK and India have started to respond to this monumental fraud, it would not be out of place to ask President Buhari to order the EFCC to investigate Nigerians whose names have featured in the Panama Paper Leak.
“It is expected that such an investigation would reveal the true identity of all those involved and how much they stashed in Panama. Such monies are direly needed to finance development now that the country’s economy is in shambles.”
Revealing Danjuma’s involvement, an online report has it that “the Mossac Fonseca files has now exposed another of his companies – Eastcoast Investments Inc – which he incorporated in Nassau, in the Bahamas, on March 25, 1997.
At inception, Mr. Danjuma and a certain Colin Marcel Dixon were directors of the company.”
The reports added “the general formed the company to enable him to do business with Scancem International of Norway when the later decided to expand its involvement in Africa to include a project in Nigeria. But the company soon became embroiled in a messy bribery scandal, with Scancem, according to court papers, later buying out Eastcoast Investment from the project on December 1, 2003.
“It was later determined that “the money went mainly to another account, Eastcoast Investment had, to General T.Y. Danjuma and a certain The Volta Company”.
As the controversy raged, Mr. Danjuma resigned as director of the company, but we did not sight any document indicating that he transferred his shareholding to anyone.
“A certain Satish Chander Dosaj, who later died, replaced him. On his death, Elizabeth Dixon, believed to be Mr. Dixon’s wife, was brought in as director.
But even before incorporating Eastcoast as a special purpose vehicle to do business with Scancem, Mr. Danjuma had used several offshore entities in the past, mostly registered in tax havens.
Some of the monies were handed over to local contacts in envelopes while others were transferred to accounts in Luxembourg, Switzerland and other places.
“But while Mr Kjelsaas was helping to coordinate Scancem bribery operation across Africa, he was alleged to have kept some of the bribe money for himself.
The document also revealed how Messrs. Danjuma, Kjelsaas and Dixon, who himself was an employee of Scancem, allegedly collaborated to obtain a $3.2 million buyout from Scancem.
The online medium claimed that several attempts to get the general’s response to the revelations were fruitless.
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19 Comments
All will come to the open. Anything two people know ceases to be a secret. The Government should act swiftly. We are dazed ladies and gentlemen. The world of fraud we are living is apparently disgusting. Who is next?
When breeze blow, fowl yansh go open. We have not heard the last of this, yet!
Danjuma, the expert in DUBIOUS, FILTHY and HIDDEN DEALS.:- morally bankrupt, yet a man regarded as a leader in this dysfunctional country. Judas Danjuma in the open again,: GOD have mercy on this condemned thief.
The blood of Ironsi has finally caught up with him.
Nigerians old and young lack morals. This man has stolen mercilessly from poor Nigerians and impoverish them whilst Nasarawa ‘Law Makers’ openly and thuggishly quarrelling before the cameras. Truly sad and betrays poor educational and moral values. If Nasarawa can be hijacked by a bunch of thugs, which other states are nurturing gangs of hooligans? We are all to blame as we continue to fail at the ballot box when we have the opportunity to chose leaders.
We need urgent social and cultural paradigms shift. I now concede that all current adult Nigerians at home and in diaspora are discredited and I include myself for not returning home to help in the re-alignment of our social and cultural values towards the much needed common interest. I regret not doing more beyond material help for my siblings and friends back home.
My prayer to our ancestors is for forgiveness and help in supporting all positively motivated young people who must drag this great nation of people into moral fortitude. We have too many Danjumas, Saraki et al, who are only interested in milking a very emaciated cow without any care for the health of the cow. They will not be forgiven by our ancestors but will forever be hunted by the consequences of their depravity
Some people can be very wayward, and untrustworthy; they are not trust worthy, very wicked sets of Nigerians have ruled us in the past. Haba! Can you imagine Saraki !!!! David Mark and Ibori including their wives and nailing Nigerian to hunger cross. state can no longer pay salaries in a country that have the most wealthy resources in the World.
The country that supposed to be the most economic viable in the world could not feed her citizens, courtesy of all these thief.
More of it is on the way!
danjuma the old thief now will be in efcc net.
these are all looters of the same kind emptying our treasury dry.
they all need to be stoned in the nigerian streets with no place to run to and their houses burned to ashes,
No need for violent retribution. This man has soiled his own name and that of his whole family. We must focus our energy on recovering our material from this now confirmed thief. Danjuma will forever be equated to Abacha. We must recover our moneys and seek out his accomplices. Very Disappointing events.
EFCC, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?? GET DANJUMA, THE LONGSTANDING OIL THIEF NOW EXPOSED BY PANAMA PAPER.
EFCC do you say? The story will end uo in their dust bin. They’ll tell you it’s beyond their jurisdiction and other agencies will follow suit.
GENERAL DANJUMA, YOUR SMILE WILL SOON BEGIN TO FADE.
Who does not know that T. Y Danjuma is a thief, The man has stolen so much over the years and yet he opens his mouth to shout that we must stop corruption, as if corruption is a human being that we have to catch.
I bet you nothing will happen, Danjuma will not be investigated believe me, the story will just die like that, this is Naija. The world is full of corrupt people therefore, you can’t send a thief to catch a thief unless if that thief is in the bad book of the other thief, otherwise they are the same. What if Buhari’s name also come out? I leave the answer to you.
if Buhari’s name comes out, then he should do the honorable thing and resign just like the prime minister of Iceland did. That is my expectation.
Iyo resign! you just come abi, did you say resign?
Expect nothing to happen in this case. Danjuma is an untouchable. He, of course killed Gen. Ironsi thereby becoming the sole owner of Nigeria. Who are you to question him or the source of his wealth or how much tax he is paying?
This case will expose the hypocrisy of this administration when it comes to fighting corruption. While heads are rolling in every country where the citizens are exposed in this report, nothing is expected to happen in Nigeria. Femi Falana, the self-styled anti-corruption crusader, and co. have suddenly gone silent.
Danjuma is too high on the food chain to fall prey to this type of thing. As far as we know these occurrences may have taken place while he was a civilian and in the private sector. What needs to be probed is if indeed any of this occurred while in office as a civil servant and secondly we should want to know how such a civil servant got to own a productive oil field in the first place. Nigeria has been giving away the people’s assets to individuals for too long and if Buhari is to be trusted and believed he needs to rescind such ownership of national assets by underserving civil servants, now, that is the issue. Will he do the right thing? We are tired of the sound bites by Buhari, lets see some action and published reports on the successes he has had upbraiding corruption, otherwise all of this will only amount to lip service and business as usual. Let it be known to Buhari that there is no honeymoon, the shoe has really began to pinch and the people are feeling the pain like never before, it is “zero tolerance” for ineptitude.
This will also form part of the test for Buhari’s anti corruption war
We will review and take appropriate action.