National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, has opened up on the circumstances surrounding the discovery of over N13 billion in an apartment in Lagos last month
He revealed that he informed President Muhammadu Buhari about the National Intelligence Agency, NIA’s covert operations.
According to online portal, Premium Times, Monguno knew about the covert operation, took part in its gradual advancement and expressed the satisfaction of not only himself but that of the President over the diligence and professionalism of NIA personnel executing the intelligence projects.
“Detailed brief of this exercise was rendered to the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, who expressed satisfaction on your agency’s foresighted disposition on development of its critical infrastructure,” Mr. Monguno said in a letter to the Director-General of the NIA, Ayodele Oke.
The May 17, 2016 correspondence, with reference number: NSA/332/S, was written to Mr. Oke as part of the of NSA’s oversight activities concerning the NIA covert operations, which was already underway at the time.
Three months earlier, Monguno had raised a three-member panel to inspect the projects the NIA was undertaking as part of the clandestine operations approved by former President Goodluck Jonathan.
In its report to the NSA on February 29, the team expressed satisfaction with the level of progress on the overt and covert projects, which has a budget of $289 million.
The panel, which Monguno described in a document as having conducted “a comprehensive inspection of the NIA projects both in Lagos and Abuja,” was led by Adeyinka Famadewa, a brigadier-general in the Nigerian Army with specialities in military intelligence.
Although Monguno did not openly deny knowledge of the operations and projects, several Presidency sources, according to Premium Times, have suggested that neither the NSA nor the president was briefed about the $289 million released to the NIA or the projects being executed with it.
President Buhari also indicated that he did not know about the operation when he suspended Mr. Oke from office and set up a panel to investigate the “circumstances in which the NIA came into possession of the funds, how and by whose or which authority the funds were made available to the NIA, and to establish whether or not there had been a breach of the law or security procedure in obtaining custody and use of the funds.”