TheCable

Shuaibu Salisu Abdulmalik, a former director of finance at the office of the national security adviser, on Tuesday told a federal high court, Abuja, that Sambo Dasuki, former NSA, paid N2.1bn into the account of Raymond Dokpesi’s company – Daar Communications Plc – without a contract.

Abdulmalik, who testified as prosecution witness 2 before Justice John Tsoho, said the money was not captured in the NSA budget.

The witness was the director of finance and administration at ONSA between November 2010 – 2015.

Led in evidence by Rotimi Jacobs, counsel to the EFCC, Abdulmalik said: “My schedule of duty includes: general administration; finance; preparation of budget and salaries. I also liaise with the accountant-general of the federation, AGF, as well as the minister of finance.”

“Sometime in January 2015, the then NSA (Dasuki) and I were having breakfast in his office as usual when he gave me Dr. Dokpesi’s number and asked me to call him. He said Dokpesi would give me an account number and that I should credit the account with N500million. After breakfast, I called Dokpesi and introduced myself to him. He sent his PA to me, who was woman and whose name I have forgotten. The woman gave me Dopkesi’s personal account number, but I told her that the CBN would not pay money to a personal account.”

According to Abdulmalik, Dokpesi’s PA came the next day with details of Daar Investments and Holding Company Limited’s account domiciled with First Bank.

“I collected the account details and prepared the mandate for NSA to sign. The NSA did not tell me the purpose of the transfer, so in the mandate, I put MEDIA CAMPAIGN as the purpose of the transfer and took the mandate to CBN,” he said.

The witness further narrated how he transferred additional funds to the same account.

According to him, “the transfers totalled N2,120,000,000.”

Abdulmalik stated that the funds were transferred between January and March 2015, adding that “to the best of my knowledge, no contract existed between the ONSA and Dokpesi nor his company”.

He clarified the phrase “all due process complied with” written on the mandate to simply mean, “all the signatories signed accordingly”. He explained that the signatories as stipulated by the financial regulations were the NSA and him, being the counter-signer.

The former DFA also insisted: “We did not budget for any media campaign. As far as I can remember, this is the first time such payment will be made from the ONSA.”

The judge adjourned the trial to February 7 and 8, 2017.