Osinbajo authorises EFCC to investigate what happened to N80bn handed to DSS under Daura

ACTING president Professor Yemi Osinbajo has tasked the head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Ibrahim Magu with finding out what happened to  N80bn ($221m) given to the Department of State Services (DSS) which its former boss Lawal Daura refused to account for.

On Tuesday, Nigerians woke up to the drama of masked DSS men sealing off the National Assembly premises, preventing legislators and their aides from going to their offices. Irate senators and members of the House of Representatives who confronted the security men, condemned what they described as a major assault on democracy.

Legislators accused the presidency of using force of arms to prevent them going about their lawful business and after the crescendo grew too loud, Professor Osinbajo acted swiftly by dismissing the director-general of the DSS Lawal Daura. Since his sacking, Mr Daura has been placed under house arrest and is being investigated for corruption too.

Yesterday, Professor Osinbajo asked Mr Magu, the acting head of the EFCC to now probe the funds given to the DSS, which Mr Daura refused to give account for. While in office, Mr Daura prevented Mr Magu and his agency from investigating or arresting top security chiefs suspected to have been involved in large scale cash movements.

In addition, apart from standing against the confirmation of Mr Magu as the substantive EFCC chairman, Mr Daura also blocked his agency from arresting former heads of the DSS and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). According to Mr Daura, no other  agency had any right to probe the expenditure of the DSS, NIA and other security outfits, as doing so, was against the law establishing them.

However, Professor Osinbajo has cleared the way for all officials of security agencies who had been fingered in the disappearance of about N80bn last year, to be investigated and possibly charged to court. One top presidency source confirmed that the acting president had given his full support to the EFCC to trace the whereabouts of the cash and retrieve it without further delay.

“It is in connection with the recovery of the huge sums of cash that the acting president met twice with the acting heads of DSS and EFCC for two consecutive days and ordered them to work together in order to trace and recover the money from whoever might have taken a penny out of it. You can see that the two heads are actually moving to actualise the directive of the presidency and Nigerians will soon hear of the outcome of the synergy between the two agencies headed by Magu and Seiyefa,” the source added.

Top on the list of cash to be investigated is  $289,202,382 (N57.8bn) given to the NIA and another N20bn, which was reportedly handed over to the DSS prior to the 2015 election. However, while part of the  $289m given to the NIA was later found in an Ikoyi apartment in Lagos, nothing has been heard of the cash given to the DSS, which prompted the EFCC to launch a probe last November but was stalled when Mr Daura unleashed his men to chase away the EFCC operatives.

Mathew Seiyefa has been appointed as the acting head of the DSS to replace Mr Daura and is cooperating with the EFCC to find out what happened to the cash. he has met with Professor Osinbajo and Mr Magu and is working with other security agencies to account for the missing money.