Nigeria's fromer national security adviser ‘stole billions’ in arms deals meant for weapons to fight Boko Haram

Arrest ordered as ficticious arms deals worth €5bn are uncovered

Nigeria’s leader has ordered the arrest of the former president’s national security adviser for allegedly stealing billions of dollars meant to buy weapons to fight Boko Haram Islamic extremists rampaging across north-east Nigeria.

“Thousands of needless Nigerian deaths would have been avoided” if the money had been properly spent, Femi Adesina, an adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, said in a statement.

The order follows an interim report by a presidential committee that uncovered fraudulent and fictitious arms contracts amounting to $5.4bn (€5.07bn), Adesina said.

The committee is investigating arms procurement since 2007 as part of the fight against endemic corruption that Buhari has waged since taking office in May.

Nigerian president orders arrest of ex-security adviser for allegedly stealing billion. https://t.co/lTvFZLCLTf pic.twitter.com/HyCoysy58U

— Al Jazeera Breaking News (@AJENews) November 18, 2015

Buhari has also ordered the arrest of other former high-ranking officials linked to the scandal, said Adesina.

Sambo Dasuki, a key adviser to former president Goodluck Jonathan from 2011, is accused of awarding “phantom contracts” to buy 12 helicopters, four fighter jets, and munitions worth $2.9bn that were never supplied. Buhari fired him in July.

Dasuki denied any wrongdoing in an interview with the PR Nigeria news agency, and said he was proud that in the final months under his watch, Nigeria’s military ousted Boko Haram from its self-declared Islamic caliphate in the country’s north east.

That offensive came as Jonathan faced elections.

In the year before, soldiers fled before the extremists, allowing them to take control of a large swathe of north-east Nigeria.

Soldiers said they were going into battle without food and armed with just 30 bullets each.

Critics had questioned the ineffectiveness of Nigeria’s once-powerful military forces despite an annual defence budget of between $5 and $6bn, supplemented last year by a loan of $1bn.

Nigeria’s intelligence agency, the State Security Service, has kept Dasuki under house arrest for more than a week despite a Federal High Court order allowing him to travel abroad for medical care.

The court had allowed Dasuki bail after he pleaded innocent to other charges of money-laundering, involving more than $423,000 found in cash, and illegal possession of arms seized at two of his homes.

Yesterday’s move could pre-empt the court’s demand for the attorney general to appear before it next week to explain why its order is being flouted.

Dasuki is also fighting a prosecution request for his trial to be held in secret, to protect witnesses.

State Security, formerly controlled by Dasuki, said he refused to answer the committee’s questions about the arms deals but Dasuki said he was never asked.

Dasuki, 60, had usurped the role of the ministry of defence in procuring weapons. He was called before a senate committee last year to explain South Africa’s seizure of $9.3m in cash and a $5.7m bank transfer that South Africa blocked, saying it involved an illegal arms deal.

Dasuki said the deals were legitimate.

A retired army lieutenant-colonel, Dasuki participated in every coup in Nigeria since the 1980s.