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As if corroborating Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo said on Monday that former President Goodluck Jonathan was never committed to ending the Boko Haram insurgency during his tenure.A witness, Mr. Richard Ihediwa, in the ongoing trial of former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisah Metuh, said on Thursday that the N400m Metuh got was disbursed as directed by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.
Jonathan have been saying he did not direct sharing such funds..Recently when he featured at the Oxford Union forum, United Kingdom, he claims, that his National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, could not have “stolen” $2.1 billion as alleged in an ongoing criminal trial. In a throw-back to his notorious “stealing is not corruption” dictum that attracted ridicule around the world, the former President declared: “We bought warships, we bought aircraft, we bought lots of weapons for the army and so forth and you are still saying $2.2 billion; so where did we get the money to buy those things?”
Ihediwa, led in evidence by the counsel to Metuh, Mr. Emeka Etiaba (SAN), told the Abuja High Court that Jonathan gave the directive on how the amount was to be spent.
He said that N21m was paid to former PDP Chairman, Chief Tony Anenih, for a property acquired for use by the party as its media intervention centre.
He added that although the property, located in Asokoro area of Abuja, did not belong to Anenih, he assisted the PDP media team headed by the accused in securing it.
The witness also told the court that various sums were paid to some groups coordinated by some government functionaries, including the late Oronto Douglas and Abbah Dabo.
He said he was not very certain about the amount released to late Douglas, but added that N25m was released to Dabo as mobilisation fee for advocacy groups, in line with the directive.
Ihediwa said the former president also approved different amounts for some other groups and Metuh disbursed the funds to them accordingly.
He said because of the tension and high level of insecurity across the six geo-political regions of the country then, there was the need for government to mobilise various advocacy groups to stabilise the system.
Meanwhile, Justice Okon Abang has reserved ruling for November 15 on applications filed by the defence counsel.
NAN
