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Omokri urges Trump to question Buhari on corruption within

Published

8 years ago

April 30, 2018

A former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Mr. Reno Omokri, has urged United States President, Donald Trump, to question President Muhammadu Buhari on corruption in his administration.

He stressed that the US president should ask questions on what happened to the missing $330 million on 12 Super Turano combat planes whose purchase President Buhari authorised by withdrawing $462 million from the Excess Crude Account without due process.

The former aide questioned the desperation of the presidency to boast that meeting Trump at the White House was a great achievement, and also the lies that it was the first meeting the US President would be having with an African leader at the White House.

He alleged that pundits of international affairs knew that President Buhari was actually going to the United States to be reprimanded, adding that this belief accounted for the damning report on the increase in human rights abuse and corruption released by the US last week.

He said the timing of the release of the report at just a week to the White House meeting was deliberate.

Omokri urged the U.S. President to question Buhari on what happened to the missing $330 million on 12 Super Turano combat planes, pointing out that according to one of the world’s premier aviation intelligence agency, Flight Global, the cost of a Super Tucano aircraft is around $10 million.

“The US President would obviously be interested in knowing why an aircraft Afghanistan buys for $10 million each cost Nigeria $41 million especially if Nigeria did not pay $41 million per plane to the US. The excuse given by the Buhari administration that it had to make haste and pay for the Super Tocano jets because of the anti-terror war does not make sense since the US has announced that the jets would not be ready until the year 2020. The only logical reason for the illegal and hurried payment is that it is meant to source funds for Buhari’s reelection,” he said.

“The US, knowing that a presidential election is around the corner would want to know if it could be that President Buhari plans to use the missing $330 million to boost his failing election prospects for February 2019 by funding underage and cross border voting in his North-west region of the country, as reported by independent observers such as CITAD. This becomes likely as the president recently boasted that he would be re-elected even though his popularity is at variance with his boast,” he added.