Ikoyi billions: NSA’s 2016 letter exonerated NIA D-G of wrongdoings; FG in dilemma over Act prohibiting agency’s accounts from external auditing

The Presidential Investigative Panel probing alleged corrupt practices against two top officials of the Federal Government will submit its report on Monday, Vice-Presidential spokesman, Mr Laolu Akande, has said.
Akande, in a statement on Wednesday, acknowledged that the panel was completing its assignment on May 3, and would submit the report to President Muhammadu Buhari.
The three-man committee set up by Buhari, under the chairmanship of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, two weeks ago, was given 14 days to conclude the assignment.
The panel, which also had the Attorney-General and Justice Minister, Abubakar Malami, and National Security Adviser (NSA), Major-General Babagana Munguno (rtd), as members, sat in camera throughout its work.
The panel was mandated to investigate the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, (SGF), Babachir Lawal, and the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke.
Lawal was accused of legal and due process violations in the award of contracts to companies handling the resettlement of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps under the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE).
Oke was also accused of transgressions in the discovery of large amounts of foreign and local currencies by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos.
Although the Senate, on Wednesday, recommended the prosecution of Lawal, the Osinbajo panel is in a dilemma on what to do with Oke because, according to a source, “all the papers tendered and those called to give evidence exonerated Oke of any wrongdoings”.
It was revealed to the Osinbajo Panel that immediately Monguno was appointed as the NSA, Oke briefed him “on money available to the agency, in banks and safe houses, and what the money was meant to achieve. The NSA set up an audit team, which inspected the projects and submitted its report in February, 2016. The NSA wrote back to Oke on May 17, 2016, explaining that he wrote a memo to President Muhammadu Buhari on intelligence works and projects embarked upon by the agency and the president was pleased with the agency’s foresight in developing the critical infrastructure outlined in the report”.
Copies of the exchanges involving Buhari, Monguno and Oke were submitted to the Osinbajo Panel.
Also, while the panel was yet to finish its task, Osinbajo was said to have gone to see Buhari and explained to him that the allegation of money laundering against Oke could not fly because of provisions of Paragraph 12(1) & (2) of the National Intelligence Agency Instrument No.1, a subsidiary legislation to National Security Agencies Act, 1986, which expressly stated that NIA reports directly to the president and its accounts are prohibited from external auditing.
A source said that in his April, 2015 general brief to the president on the state of affairs of the agency, Oke itemised the $289 million intervention fund approved and released to the agency by the Goodluck Jonathan administration in November, 2014. In another memo to the NSA in January 2016, he gave more details of the funds, including projects being undertaken, the amount expended, balance in the bank and cash at hand.
Freedom Online learned that the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Lawal Musa Daura, although not a member of the panel, complained bitterly to Buhari on how the ‘excesses’ of the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu “have exposed the NIA to public ridicule and international embarrassment”.
Daura’s grouse was said to have stemmed from the fact that on the day the NIA safe house was stormed by EFCC operatives, Oke was with Magu, trying to convince him that the operation may expose the intelligence network of Nigeria to outside forces.
Daura was not comfortable with the way, immediately after the operation, everything was exposed to the media, even when Magu knew that the place is NIA’s safe house.
Unlike DSS officials, NIA agents are rarely seen.
The source said the general belief in Nigeria’s intelligence circle is that the operation was carried out “to rubbish Oke who has spent 37 years in the service, and 14 of the 37 years spent in the Commonwealth. There is the likelihood that when he retires soon, an international intelligence job is waiting for him”.