$2.1bn Armsgate: Dasuki weeps

• Kept in solitary confinement  • DSS bars two year-old son from seeing him

Sambo Dasuki, embattled Nigeria’s former National Security Adviser (NSA),  is having his mettle put to the test lately as the soldier in him reportedly collapsed penultimate week inside the solitary confinement the Department of State Security keeps him.

Sources told the National Daily the former security adviser broke down when his two-year-old son and wife were barred from seeing him in detention.

The retired officer was miffed that he was being deprived the pleasure of cuddling his son as a father should even when he has not been convicted.

National Daily sources reveal that barring visitors, including operatives of the DSS from having access to the former security Chief is part of a complex strategy to humiliate and ultimately break him down.

“The truth is that the authorities are very bitter and angry with Colonel Dasuki. Nigerians can also confirm that the man is very proud from the way he walks each time we bring him to court. So the big ogas here decided that he should be kept in solitary confinement to break him. And we are following the order strictly”, said one of the sources.

His arrest

Dasuki, arrested last November after he was initially released in September, has been held in the DSS custody as he faces trial over alleged misappropriation of $2.1 billion meant for arms purchase during the first military campaign against Boko Haram in the northeast in 2014.

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The former NSA been arrested three times so far, (the last time by the EFCC) while his co-accused, including ex-Gov. Attahiru Bafarawa, former finance minister Bashiru Yuguda, PDP’s stalwart Raymond Dokpesi, and others have been granted bail.

Although Justice Abeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered Dasuki’s release in November, on health ground, the DSS continued to detain him.

The judge, at a point, summoned the new Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, to appear before him to explain why the DSS flouted his order.

Battle for freedom

On January 23, Dasuki’s team of lawyers headed by J.B. Daodu, an ex-President of the Nigeria Bar Association, prayed the court to suspend hearing on the 19-count charge levelled against their client.

The lawyers argued that the continued detention of Dasuki is hurting his rights to prepare for his defence. “My client has been granted bail by all the courts they charged him, yet the Federal Government refused to obey the court orders even when we have fulfilled all the bail conditions,” Daodu said, citing how it took an express order of the court to make the EFCC produce Dasuki in court.

“They cannot keep him in detention forever all in the name of conducting investigations.”
They now ask the court to discharge their client.

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Rights activists and the international community have also joined the call for Dasuki’s release if the federal government will not charge him to court.

“There is no provision for keeping criminal suspects at the pleasure of security officials,” said Femi Falana, a senior advocate who had initially urged President Muhammad Buhari to ignore those calls. “Meanwhile, all valid and subsisting orders made by courts in favour of criminal suspects should be obeyed without further delay.”

Buhari’s resolve

But Buhari told Nigerians during his first Presidential Media Chat that prized suspects like Dasuki cannot be let loose just like that. “If you see the atrocities these people committed against this country, we can’t allow them to jump bail,” the president said.

Buhari’s statement, however, drew the fire of his critics. “We appreciate the President because he has spoken from his heart and gave us the correct impression of who he is,” rights activist and lawyer Ebun Adegboruwa said after the media chat.

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“Under Section 287 of the 1999 constitution, all persons exercising judicial, executive or legislative power must have respect for the order of the court. It is not proper for the president to choose which order to respect or to obey.”

Many Nigerians also believe Buhari is vindictive—that he is paying Dasuki back for coordinating his arrest during the 1985 coup that overthrew the Supreme Military Council headed by Gen. Buhari then.

But the APC government and its supporters believe the iron fist with which the federal government is prosecuting Dasuki is in order, considering the thousands of lives lost, including 25 soldiers’, in the 2014 counterinsurgency campaign hampered by lack of military equipment.