In the Senate yesterday, it was discovered that the money found in the Ikoyi apartment of the former Director-General of National Intelligence Agency, NIA, Ayodele Oke by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was a fraction of $289million cash collected by the DG from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
The revelation is coming three years after the $43million scandal that led to the sacking of Ayodele Oke as the Director – General of NIA.
According to IgbereTV reports, this was made known to the Senate Committee on Public Accounts led Senator Matthew Urhoghide of Peoples Democratic Party Party by the Financial Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Godwin Okonkwo. Okonkwo who noted that the $289million cash given to the former NIA boss by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN was based on directive to that effect from NNPC, stressed that NNPC gave directive for release of the said money by CBN to NIA but explained that NNPC’s action was also based on directive from the presidency then.
According to him, the Presidency approved payment of the said amount to NIA on February 16, 2015 which was however carried out by the CBN on February 24 ,2015 to the former DG and not the Agency.
Okonkwo said, “Yes, we complied with the request. It is not true that we said the money should be paid to the Director – General but to the NIA as an institution. “I’m not defending NIA for requesting for the money to be paid in cash but considering the circumstances, it was for security purposes.
“NNPC obliged because we are not in charge of security. If they request for payment in cash and they said it is for security, and that it must be transferred through electronic means to a particular account, NNPC cannot say no because If anything happens afterwards, NNPC will be held responsible “
On his part, Chairman of the Committee , Senator Mathew Urhoghide who noted that there was no documents before the Committee indicating that directives for release of the said money was issued from the Presidency, said, “Available documents from the office of the Auditor – General of the Federation and even those from NNPC, did not indicate that any directive to that effect was given by the Presidency. “The documents before us show that $289 million was released by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from Niger Delta Security Votes in the CBN to NIA DG in February 2015 and in cash which is against extant laws.”
Urhoghide who stressed that from the documents made available to the Committee that it was NNPC that advised CBN to pay the money to former NIA DG in cash which was against extant laws. He said that based on the audit query from the Auditor – General for the Federation, the NNPC granted a request from the NIA to pay $289m in cash to the Director – General of the NIA and that the NNPC complied by directing the CBN to pay the cash to the NIA.
