Okonjo-Iweala Speaks On Abacha Funds

Okonjo-Iweala issued a statement via her media adviser
Paul C Nwabuikwu describing the allegations as
baselles.
The former minister stated that this level of persecution
and harassment unprecedented, signals danger of
fighting corruption in office.
Borno state government reportedly made this accusation
and asked Okonjo-Iweala to account for the N3.2 billion
realised in support of the “Safe School Initiative” under
the immediate past administration of former president
Goodluck Jonathan.
The ex-minister was also accused of approving the
transfer of at least N61.4b from funds recovered from
Abacha to the office of the Sambo Dasuki.
Read the statement below:
“As part of the campaign of falsehood against former
Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala by Edo
Governor, Adams Oshiomhole and other powerful and
corrupt interests, another baseless story has been
published by some online media. To achieve their evil
propaganda objective of tarnishing her name, these evil
elements have distorted the contents of a memo dated
January 20, 2015 in which the former Minister of Finance,
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala responded to a request by the
former National Security Adviser, Col Ibrahim Dasuki
(retired) for funds to prosecute the terror war against
Boko Haram.
Here are the facts:
· The central responsibility of the Minister of Finance IS
to find sources of funding for the financing of approved
national priorities such as security, job creation and
infrastructure.
· It will be recalled that throughout 2014, there were
public complaints by the military hierarchy to President
Goodluck Jonathan about the inadequacy of funds to fight
the anti-terror war in the North East, resulting in Boko
Haram making gains and even taking territories. A lot of
the criticism was directed at the Federal Ministry of
Finance under Dr Okonjo-Iweala which was accused of
not doing enough to find funds for the operations.
READ ALSO: GEJ, Okonjo-Iweala Illegally Transferred
N61.4b To Dasuki
· In fact, the Ministry, on several occasions, had to call
press conferences to provide details of budgetary
spending on the military, to show, against the
background of limited resources and other urgent
national priorities, that it was doing its best on funding
security.
· It was about this time that some new Abacha funds of
about $322m were returned with another $700m still
expected to be returned.
This is not to be confused with the Abacha funds
returned in 2005-2006 under the Obasanjo government
whose use for developmental purposes was monitored
by the World Bank as earlier explained by Dr Okonjo-
Iweala).
· Former President Jonathan set up a Committee
comprising of the former Minister of Justice, former NSA
and the former Minister of Finance to determine how
best to use both the returned and expected funds for
development.
· The NSA made a case for using the returned funds for
urgent security operations since, he noted, there cannot
be any development without peace and security. Based
on this, a decision was taken to deploy about $322m for
the military operations, while the expected $700m would
be applied for development programmes as originally
conceived.
· Following the discussions and based on the urgency of
the NSA’s memo, Dr Okonjo-Iweala requested the
President to approve the transfer of the requested
amount to the NSA’s Office for the specified purposes.
But, as captured in the memo, she insisted on three
conditions:
a. only a part, not the entire Abacha funds would be
spent on the arms; the rest would be invested in
developmental projects as originally conceived
b. the money was to be treated as borrowed funds which
would be paid back as soon as possible
c. the NSA’s office was to account for the spending to
the President who was the Commander in Chief, given
the fact that the Minister of Finance is not part of the
security architecture and does not participate in the
Security Council.
The attempt to link the former Minister’s name to any
misuse of these funds for any purpose other than
security as far as she understood it is totally false and
cannot stand.”