It 's time to arrest Jonathan ' Lagos APC – Premium Times – Lagos

The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives
Congress has criticised former President Goodluck
Jonathan for rising to the defence of his embattled
former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.
In a statement on Thursday, the party said Mr.
Jonathan’s claims had proved beyond doubts that he
knew everything about the arms purchase scandal as
well as other corruption cases that happened in his
regime.
“Even as we concede that Jonathan is on a desperate
bid to rehabilitate himself, we wouldn’t believe that a
former president should be so contemptuous of the
intelligence of Nigerians as to give the kind of
defence he gave to Sambo Dasuki,” the Lagos APC
said in a statement by Joe Igbokwe, its publicity
secretary.
“We wonder what Jonathan makes of the horrid
details that are emanating from the Dasukigate issue
with shocking evidences, confessions and even
refunds made by those that participated in that
monumental corruption.”
While addressing a gathering on youth
entrepreneurship at the Oxford Union, in the United
Kingdom, Mr. Jonathan said it was impossible for Mr.
Dasuki, a retired army colonel, to have stolen $2.2
billion as claimed by the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission.
“They said the National Security Adviser stole $2.2
billion,” Mr. Jonathan said while responding to a
question about the alleged missing arms
procurement fund now referred to as Dasukigate by
the Nigerian media.
“I don’t believe somebody can just steal $2.2 billion.
We bought warships, we bought aircraft, we bought
lots of weapons for the army and so on and so forth
and you are still saying 2.2 billion, so where did we
get the money to buy all those things?”
The APC said there should be a limit to defending
“such hefty corruption acts”, which greatly
compromised the nation’s security and led to the
loss of thousands of precious Nigerian lives.
The party also cautioned Mr. Jonathan not to
continue to play on the intelligence of Nigerians
who, they said, is still smarting from the horrendous
cases of corruption that were perpetrated under him.
“To claim that Dasuki and his partners did not steal
the arms purchase fund reveals the inner beliefs of
Jonathan and explains that he is intrinsically webbed
to corruption,” Mr. Igbokwe said.
“Even while he is perceived as pathologically corrupt
and his regime seen as the most corrupt in Nigeria’s
chequered history, one would have expected
Jonathan to be cautious in seeking to advance very
childish and inadmissible exculpation of his
subordinates for glaring acts of corruption.
“We had expected that jJonathan would have striven
to water down the lowly impression held of him by
Nigerians and the international community by not
deciding to be so patronising to clear cases of
corruption by his subordinates. But with each day,
Jonathan continues to baffle by his chameleonic
acts.
“By Jonathan’s cheap defence of Sambo Dasuki, we
believe time has come for the security agencies to
pick up Jonathan to tell the nation all that he knows
of the many cases of corruption that happened under
him.”
The party said it believed the former president knows
more than he admits about the “unseemly corruption”
that he presided over and should be brought in for
questioning.
“We don’t believe any thing shields Jonathan from
prosecution for corruption as we believe it is
becoming indefensible for Jonathan to pretend he
was innocent of the corrupt acts of his
subordinates,” Mr. Igbokwe continued.
“While we condemn Jonathan’s cheeky defence of
Dasuki, even in the face of monumental damning
evidences, we want to state that the anti corruption
war is incomplete until Jonathan is prosecuted for he
continually proves, by such defence of his corrupt
subordinates, that he knew everything that transpired
in his corruption-ridden regime.”