Dasukigate: Who is who in Nigeria?

By Joseph Edgar . . .

The way this is going, every prominent Nigerian would soon be mentioned in this scandal of monumental proportions. Even the President has been mentioned with the receipt of two Jeeps and this is throwing up a lot of questions; Questions on election campaign funding at least on the part of the recipients of these funds. A lot of these matters are already in court and one will not want to be subjudice by discussing them, but some cases need to be looked at.

Chief Olu Falae has just admitted to receiving N100m from Chief Anenih. Tanko Yakassai the elder statesman has also come out to state his own side after receiving some of the funds. Now the question to be asked is ‘do I have any legal or moral obligation to query where the funds are coming from especially third party recipients like Chief Falae who has not been proven to have collected the monies directly from Dasuki.

This matter to me goes deep into government funding of campaign and how they are regulated by the constitution. I also think that the time has come for former President Jonathan to be called in and respectfully asked his own side of the story. Why was the office of the Security Adviser used for this purpose? Elections are purely a party matter, why was the high command of the then ruling party not used in this exercise? Why were monies meant for the procurement of arms now diverted to fund the elections and when soldiers where mutinying, why where they even sentenced to death when if it was very clear that all the funds had been diverted to compensate newspaper barons and elder statesmen.

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So the issue is now who did not collect and if Buhari insist on getting to the bottom of it, a whole generation of politicians will end up in jail at worst and at best have their reputations in tatters.

Daily, more names are being mentioned and the EFCC has even come out to say more prominent Nigerians will be pulled in for questioning in the coming weeks. It is alarming and I think the investigations should just go to the source and if at all go to how the monies where utilized after receipt.

For example if Chief Falae transferred some of the funds to his personal account after receipt then he may just have some questions to answer but if he as he has claimed received the funds on behalf of his party and used it for the purpose it was meant for then he should be allowed to focus on his ongoing wahala with Fulani herdsmen in peace.

The issue here is election campaign funding and as long as the laws guiding them are not enforced or even promulgated, we will continue to see these kinds of scandals.

Now that the APC is in government, we wait to see just how they will fund their reelection.

Well it’s a pity sha with the kinds of names we are seeing being called. I’m still watching.

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