Nigeria orders arrest of ex-adviser over $2bn arms deal

Nigeria's president has ordered the arrest of the former national security adviser for allegedly stealing more than $2bn meant to purchase weapons for the military to fight the armed group Boko Haram.

"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 on Tuesday.

It accused Sambo Dasuki, a key adviser to former president Goodluck Jonathan, of awarding "phantom contracts" to buy 12 helicopters, four fighter jets, and bombs and ammunition worth $2bn that never were supplied.

Dasuki also got the Central Bank to transfer $142.6m to a company with accounts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and in West Africa for unknown purposes and without contracts, Adesina alleged. 


Dasuki denied any wrongdoing in an interview on Tuesday night with the PR Nigeria news agency.
He said he was proud that in the final months under his watch Nigeria's military ousted Boko Haram from a large swath of territory it had seized in northeast Nigeria.

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 granted 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.