Adams Oshiomhole, the Edo State Governor has insisted that the dragnet of the law on the Dasuki arms deal scandal must be extended to the former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Speaking with State House correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, yesterday, the governor, noted that restricting the probe to the National Security Adviser (NSA) Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) and those facing investigation, without extending the dragnet to the approving authorities would not yield the desired results in the president’s attempt to institutionalize a regime of transparency, integrity and honesty in governance.
Oshiomhole said he was not surprised about the revelations coming out of the probe exercise. His words: “I’m not shocked but I have been saying it and I have told a couple of persons that the government has to go the whole hog because I know as a governor that no money gets out of the treasury even after I have approved as the governor without the Commissioner of Finance endorsing it.
Those are the procedures. So the probe should go into whether or not these monies were properly appropriated.
“Through who did the money go out of the treasury? The Minister of Finance under the rules must endorse before money gets out of the treasury before the Central Bank of Nigeria will release the money.
“So all those Ministers of Finance, include Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, irrespective of what people say, must give account of what they did. You cannot be coordinating a corruption-ridden economy and you pretend to be an angel.”
