There seem to be no letting up on the scandals plaguing the National Intelligence Agency as another $202 million has been discovered to be missing from its coffers.
Recall that first there was the issue of $43 million found in an Ikoyi, Lagos apartment said to belong to the NIA, Then there was the $44 million allegedly missing from the NIAโs coffers which the House of Representatives mandated its committee on Public Safety and National Security to investigate.
Chairman of the Committee , Hon. Aminu Sani Jaji (APC Zamfara) said while investigating the missing $44 million as mandated by the House, a stunning discovery came to light that an additional $202 million is missing from the coffers of the NIA.
In a post-meeting briefing with reporters at the weekend, the committee chair said it was discovered that a total of $289 million was given to the NIA by the Goodluck Jonathan administration for โ interventionโ
According to him, the money was not appropriated by the National Assembly for the Agency. โThe NIA got the money for โinterventionโ from the past administration. For whatever reason, the past DG, Ayo Oke failed to disclose to the present administration that we have this amount of money.,โ he said.
He further said: โEven the National Security Adviser, said it was when our committee began its investigation, they got the information that the NIA got $289million.
โYou know we had a meeting with the NSA today ( Friday) we later discovered since last week in our meeting with the past Acting DG NIA that the $44 million is not missing.
โFor now, I can categorically tell you the money is not missing. They only moved the money from one agency to another place pending when all the issues surrounding the agency is resolved.
โIf you remember, there was this $44million which is among the $289million approved to the then Director-General, that is Ayo Oke. Just April last year, they discovered $43million in Ikoyi. He tried to say that the $44 million and $43million are part of the $289million.
But for us, we are still working to see where the remaining $202 million was placed. We only know about the $43million now, the one discovered in Ikoyi and the $44 million in their vault. In the course of our investigation, weโll come up with where the $289m really is, not the $43m and not the $44m but the entire amount.
โFor me, the money($202million) is still missing. If you subtract $43million and $44million from $289million, then where is the balance? Thatโs why weโre where we are today. That is why we have to intensify our investigation.
On the issue of the citizenship of the the new DG of NIA Abubakar Rufai Ibrahim and his wife, Jaji said by the referral of the House to the committee, the circumstances surrounding his appointment was discussed.
โOne of the issues is that some are saying he has dual citizenship, but he said to us categorically that his father is from Katsina and he (his father) after sometime decided to migrate from Katsina to Chad. His mother is a Nigerian, and his wife too is a Nigerian.
โHe even showed us the approval of the then DG that he was allowed to marry her. I think sheโs Fadilah by name. Sheโs from Katsina. She did her secondary school in Sandamu.
โAccording to the documents supplied to us, he said really he did his primary school in Chad, but he did secondary school in Nigeria and his first degree was in BUK. We saw all that.
Jaji said his committee also discussed the allegations that he failed his promotion exams with the new DG.
โNot only that but we also saw all the promotion exams that he went through when he was in service. He passed all the promotion exams that we saw in his file. We also saw that he retired not as an assistant director but as a deputy director.
โAccording to him, he retired voluntarily, thatโs what we saw in the retirement notification in his file.
