ABUJA — Indications emerged last
night that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has
received some lead on how some of the indicted top serving and retired
military officers looted the nation through fraudulent arms contract and
direct diversion of funds meant for arms procurement.
Findings by Vanguard revealed that the arrest and detention of a
serving Colonel in the Nigerian Army in relation to the diversion of
$2.1 billion meant for arms purchase in the Office of the National
Security Adviser, exposed the illicit deals undertaken by the indicted
officers.
Findings also showed that the Colonel, who hails from Delta State and
served as a Personal Assistant to the embattled ex-NSA, Col. Sambo
Dasuki, has been telling the anti-graft operatives all that he knows
about the arms deals and those who masterminded the looting of the
nation’s resources in the name of arms purchase.
It was on the strength of the revelations by the detained military
officer and others, that the EFCC, last week, wrote to the Defence
Headquarters to release the affected officers and their retired
counterparts, for immediate questioning.
Indicted officers already on our radar —EFCC
A top EFCC official, who spoke with Vanguard last night, confirmed that some of the indicted men were already under their radar.
The officer, who declined to give details of what they were doing
about the indicted officers, said that EFCC would take immediate steps
to carry out the Presidential directive arising from the indictment of
the military officers by a panel, which looked into the arms deals.
The official said: “We intend to carry out the Presidential directive
in accordance with our extant rules. Don’t forget that before the
directive came, we had already moved to fish out some in the military
top brass whose names came up in the course of investigation into the
$2.1 arms deals.
“We also have a serving military officer, who has been telling us
some of the things that took place in the name of arms purchase in the
ONSA. All these will certainly advance our work.”
It will be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari, last week,
ordered the EFCC to prosecute many top military officers and companies
indicted by a Presidential panel that probed the procurement of arms for
the country between 2007 and 2015.
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