NIA: More revelations as Reps prepare for showdown

Crisis is brewing between members of the House of Representatives and some power brokers close to the presidency, no thanks to the row generated with recent changes at the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
On Monday, members of the House of Representatives Committee on National Security and Intelligence received briefings from the immediate past Acting Director-General of NIA, Anbassador Muhammed Dauda, who gave graphic details of what led to his sack.
A member of the committee disclosed that the former Acting D-G, who was invited by the committee, met with the members behind closed doors.
He revealed that it was actually a game of intrigues, blackmail and sleazes amongst members of the Presidential Panel on the Reorganisation of NIA, under the leadership of Ambassador Babagana Kingibe that was the crux of the matter.
The committee members, who analyzed a nine-page memo submitted by Dauda, were said to have been informed that some prominent ‘power brokers’ close to President Muhammadu Buhari held the NIA to a virtual ransom over the $44 million Intervention Fund in the vaults of the agency.
A member of the committee, who craved anonymity, said that part of their discoveries from Dauda include the story of how these power brokers collected money in tranches only to demand for and collected $2 million from the agency’s coffers.
The former Acting Director-General told the committee members that the $44 million was actually moved from the vaults of the NIA on the orders of the National Security Adviser (NSA) into protective custody when it became obvious that the changes effected in the leadership of NIA was actually targeted at siphoning the $44 million, and not for any concrete reason.
While calling on the Committee members to save the jobs of the nine serving Directors of the NIA, who may have been penciled for compulsory retirement for denying the power brokers access to the $44 million, Dauda also told them that, besides the excessive monetary demands, they instructed him to shun the NSA in his dealings.
While the Presidency has been running from pillar to pole in trying to defend the appointment of Abubakar Rufai Ibrahim as NIA DG, Dauda’s memo to the House of Representatives and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) seems to have gotten them on the wrong foot as the embattled former Acting DG tendered documents relating to the claims, including the receipt of $2 million.
Dauda’s latest  exposition, which was backed by documentary evidences of corruption against the power brokers, especially the conspiracy to steal the $44 million and the surreptitious insistence that Rufai becomes the D-G to cover up the shoddy deals, may eventually lead to the arrest of those suspected to be behind the plot.