A former ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, Buba Galadima, has explained the reasons why late military dictator Gen Sani Abacha stashed millions in f
A former ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, Buba Galadima, has explained the reasons why late military dictator Gen Sani Abacha stashed millions in foreign banks, TheNation is reporting.
Galadima, a one-time National Secretary of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), said Abacha did all he did in the interest of Nigeria. According to him, the late dictator got wind of massive sanctions against Nigeria and decided to stash the funds in safe places.
“I have a completely different idea about what you called Abacha loot. I know as a fact that at that time, Abacha with knowledge of key members of his government, who knew about this money being stacked out, he was rightly adviced by some of his colleague presidents around the world,” he said.
“Saddam Hussein was one of them. Muammar Gaddafi was one of them. They adviced him that there was the likelihood that the US could sanction Nigeria and as such he should save money outside that could last the country, at least, six months, even Nigeria’s account was blocked by the US, there won’t be panic. I was a key figure in that government. I was one of the so-called Abacha boys if you must know.
“I was the Director General, National Maritime Authority, whereby export and import to Nigeria, including crude, were directly coming under my desk. So, am in position to talk about Abacha and the so-called loot. Now regarding the repatriation of the money, I fault the government in two areas about the action taken so far. At a point, one of the spokespersons of the government said they were going to use the money for palliative. At another time, the Attorney-General has come to say that the monies are going to be used for the construction of Abuja-Kano road, 2nd Niger Bridge and the Ibadan Lagos expressway.
“That is double-speak. And they should know, no matter who speaks for the government, Nigerians do not trust this government. Besides, whatever they want to use the money for, they have no power, under the Nigerian Constitution, to just spend the money without proper appropriation by the National Assembly. Whatever they want to do, they have to go to the National Assembly, for the proposal to be scrutinized by the entire country as represented by the members of the National Assembly and they get approval.
“The government is not Alpha and Omega to determine any expenditure. It is the sole prerogative of the National Assembly to determine how money is to be spent. Whatever they want to do with the money, let them know that it would be unconstitutional to sit in their offices and allocate money to their friends and say they are distributing palliatives. Unless the National Assembly appropriates, they should know that they are breaching the law and it is an impeachable offence for the president.
“What I have said to you now is my own opinion based on what I knew of the government and the man at that time. I am pretty sure that if the late Professor Sam Aluko was alive, the genius who wrote Abacha economic policy; he ran perfectly the Abacha economic policy; Aluko was a man of intelligence and integrity, he managed the economy well at that time that naira was going for 9/11 dollars. Credit must be given to him.
“The crude is selling for 20 dollars per barrel and everybody is crying and that is because there was no good economic plan in place. Aluko acknowledged the presence of these monies before he passed on. If they say Abacha was a monster, my answer is, at least he held the country together and everybody knew.”
