$2.1bn Dasukigate: Former President Jonathan set to answer EFCC as FG in dilemma over Jonathan

Former President Goodluck Jonathan is set to answer invitations by the EFCC, this is because the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is planning to invite former President Jonathan Goodluck over an allegation by erstwhile National Security Adviser, Colonel Ibrahim Dasuki, to the effect that his boss and former head of state (Jonathan) gave him the go-ahead to di¬vert a whopping sum of S2.1billion meant for procurement of arms to combat Boko Haram insurgency in the country.
Credible source close to the an¬ti-graft agency said on Saturday that the invitation of Jonathan was meant to document the position of the ex-president on the issue and use same as exhibit for prosecution of the accused persons in the case including the ex-president if any prima facie evidence is estab¬lished against him.
It was, however, learnt that the EFCC wanted the permission of President Muammadu Buhari before taking any other step on the matter.
It would be recalled that security officials had arrested Dasuki and few others over the diversion and sharing of the arms funds before arraigning them before an Abuja court.
Although Dasuki initially denied the allegation, he had to own up at in-vestigation stage when he was con¬fronted with concrete evidence and statements of some of his alleged ac¬complices.
He had mentioned names of prominent Nigerians as beneficiar¬ies of the slush funds while he named former President Jonathan as the au¬thority that gave his executive impri¬matur on the diversion and sharing of the fund.
Ex-President Jonathan had, however, taken advantage of a forum to deny the allegation while Dasuki had insisted that he did not take the decision on his own.
Opinions had since divided on the fairness of the decision by the Federal Government to arrest only the ex-NSA and the less important public figures fingered without formally inviting the ex-president for his own side of the story for the purposes of doing a good prosecution of the accused persons including ex-President Jonathan if indicted.
Although credible source close to the EFCC said that the EFCC was poised to invite or visit the ex-president in his country home as a mark of respect to get his official position on the matter but that the endorsement of President Buhari was not forthcoming as a the time of filing this report.
It was gathered that the Buhari’s administration is presently weighing options over taking such decision.
When the opinion of the Presidency on the issue yesterday, it denied playing or intending to play any role in who should be invited for questioning or prosecuted over the crime.
According to the Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media and Publicity), Mallam Garba Sheu, “the President does not determine who is invited for questioning by the investigators. So, I think the question is better directed at the EFCC or the SSS.
“Besides, the President will not like to be seen as dictating the direction of the investigation.
“If that happens, politics will be insinuated and you know, that can erode the credibility of the whole process,” he explained.
Meanwhile, a respected member of the inner bar, Chief Adeniyi Akintola (SAN) yesterday said that the desirability of inviting or visiting the President for his official position on the matter is not really necessary.
He contended that assuming without conceding that the ex-president indeed gave Dasuki the go-ahead to divert such important fund, he said it is trite that crime cannot be committed by proxy, adding that Dasuki, in law, was the one that purportedly committed the crime as the facts stood presently.
His words: “It is a complex situation. The president is an institution. The fact that you are given an unlawful order does not mean that such order must be obeyed. If you obey an unlawful order, as it appears to be in this case, you are on your own. You cannot commit crime by proxy.
“What Dasuki purportedly did was highly despicable. Because of the diversion of the fund, so many soldiers fled the war front and were court-martialled. Some of them were dismissed, some others were sentenced to death. Ordinarily, with all these evidence coming out, all these sentences ought to be revisited,” he added.
The Authority on Saturday