Minority Leader of the House of Representatives and leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus, Rep. Leo Ogor (PDP/Delta) has thrown his weight behind former President Goodluck Jonathan’s comment that it was impossible for embattled former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) to have stolen the entire $2.2billion allegedly meant for the purchase of arms and other military equipment, saying that Nigerians seem to have forgotten how the previous administration struggled to get arms to fight the insurgents.
Rep. Ogor, who stated this on Thursday in an interview with journalists while reacting to criticisms that have trailed the former president’s assertion while speaking at a public event in London, that Col. Dasuki couldn’t have misappropriated the whole funds meant to combat the insurgency, declared that the previous administration faced difficult circumstances and took difficult decisions in tackling the insurgents and in order to keep Nigeria safe and united.
“First, let me appreciate the fact that the former president has been able to make some very few comments over this issue, and like he said, he wouldn’t want to prejudice the issue knowing fully well that the matter is before a court of competent jurisdiction, and I also believe that further investigation is going on.
“But then, you know that we tend to be a little bit forgetful, but it’s good we go back memory lane and ask some fundamental questions.
“How did this whole exercise start? It started when some insurgents under the name of Boko Haram started attacking the North East; took over almost the whole of Bornu State, went over to Yobe, Adamawa, and even Abuja was not spared as bombing became the order of the day.
“You remember vividly that nobody was comfortable and you can’t even walk to a bus stop and feel comfortable standing there. But you see, we have become very forgetful, nobody seems to remember what happened any more”, Ogor said.
The House Minority Leader with nostalgia reminded Nigerians about the arms blockade by the West which relied on the Leahy law passed by the US Congress
in denying the Nigerian government under President Jonathan access to arms and the much needed military hardware because of alleged human rights abuses in the fight against Boko Haram by the Nigerian military.
Continuing, the lawmaker added that “now, let me take you back to the Leahy law passed by the US government. How President Jonathan then was doing everything possible to import arms, but the Americans refused to sell arms to us. Even the European nations refused to sell arms to us at this particular time.
“If you recall, this subject matter came to the floor of the 7th House, and we told President Jonathan that in line with the provision of Section 14 sub-section (2b) of the constitution, which states that the welfare of the citizenry which is the primary responsibility of government, he must go beyond everything and make sure that he get arms to defend our nation.
“I even went as far as granting newspaper interviews that if Jonathan needed to smuggle arms to fight the insurgency, he had our blessings. And I don’t know how somebody would have opened a letter of credit, because we know what happened.
“To buy arms from the black market, remember too that we took cash, having being denied the opportunity by European nations and America; we took cash to South Africa and the South African government seized the money. But I believe that these are issues that will raise their heads at the appropriate time.”.
He said it would be unfair for anybody to point accusing fingers without appreciating the enormity of the challenges the government at that time faced and the difficulty experienced in tackling the insurgents, just because the worst days are over.
“Today, the whole thing has died down and everybody is busy calling names. But I think they should carry out further investigation to find out what really happened. How did these arms, even if you call them inferior come in? How were they purchased? Did the American government agree to sell arms to us? Did the European governments agree to sell arms to us? How were we able to purchase these arms?
“And in a scenario or a situation where you have to adopt the black market approach, and just like the former president said, you may not rule out some level of corruption. But it’s not at the level which is presently being publicised by the media. So we really want to be a bit patient and allow the investigation to take its course, so that Nigerians will know the truth,” he added.
