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High profile corruption trial: Dasuki & the diverted $2.1 billion arms fund

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In November 2019, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) told an FCT High Court in Maitama it would seek a court order for a separate trial for former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd) different from his seven other defendants.

Dasuki is being tried before the court in two separate cases alongside other defendants before Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf by EFCC since 2015 on alleged misappropriation of over two billion dollars meant for the purchase of arms.

At the resumed sitting in one of the cases, EFCC counsel, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), expressed frustration over the continued absence of Dasuki who is the first defendant in the case.

Jacobs, however, said that the best thing to do in the present circumstance was the unbundling of the case so that Dasuki would be separated from other defendants.

He said: “We can’t be in the same place for four years without moving”.

Responding to this, counsel for Baba-Kusa, Solomon Umoh (SAN), submitted that Dasuki is central to the charge against other defendants.

He add: “If he is separated, how can we get a fair hearing?” The trial judge, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf, however, gave an open adjournment and asked the prosecution to file the amendment and serve same on the defendants for them to come to court and take fresh pleas.

Mohammed Sambo Dasuki, a former National Security Adviser (NSA) to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan has been standing trial over alleged diversion of $2.1 billion meant for the purchase of firearms and illegal possession of firearms.

Three cases were pending against him before a Federal High Court and the High Court of the FCT, Abuja.

Dasuki was being tried before Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court for money laundering and illegal possession of firearms.

He is being tried with Aminu Baba-Kusa and Baba-Kusa’s two firms – Acacia Holdings Ltd and Reliance Referral Hospital Limited and some others on a thirty two – count charge pending before Justice Hussein Baba Yusuf of the Abuja High Court.

They were accused of diverting N32 billion meant for purchase of arms and charges involving alleged diversion of about N13 billion meant for arms purchase were filed before the same judge.

Between October 2018 when trial resumed on $2.1bn arms fund diversion, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.)’s absence in court had stalled proceedings which made the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Maitama, Abuja, on Tuesday April 16, 2019, to serve the Department of State Services (DSS), a production warrant and ordered the Federal Government’s agency to produce the detained ex-National Security Adviser, Col. Dasuki (retd.) in court on May 24th, 2019.

He was at some point rumoured dead before his family and DSS refuted the information.

The Court of Appeal in Abuja in July 2019 declared the continued detention of Sambo Dasuki (retd), by the DSS as illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional and ordered Dasuki’s release on conditional bail.

In the unanimous judgment of a three-man panel led by Justice Tinuade Akomolafe-Wilson, the appellate court held that the fundamental right of the former NSA had been brazenly and brutally breached by the prolonged detention without trial over any fresh charge or investigation contrary to the provisions of the 1999 Constitution.

Dasuki has been in the custody of the DSS since December 2015 and still being held by the DSS.

[A Publication of Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA)]

NB: Dasuki has been released on conditional bail via a court order while this report was being compiled.

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