Thread by @AsiwajuOladimej

I decided to do a little research on the Tucano Aircraft deal between Nigeria and US governments and i strongly think that PMB and his advisers did a dirty job and have no excuse for not seeking NASS approval before paying $496m to the US govt.

Thread.

From my research, the Tucano Aircraft deal was approved by US govt August, 2017 after Donald Trump gave his support in April, 2017.

By December 2017, a letter of offer/acceptance was forwarded to Nigeria government by US government, final agreement and payments will be done by Feb 2018.

However, in January, Nigeria government complained about some of the conditions of the deal

In a dramatic way, Defence Minister claimed that the sum of $496m had been paid directly to the US government for the Tucano aircraft deal but silent on the issue of approval from NASS. Funny right?

Note the date: April 4.

After the public outcry, and as usual, the Presidency denied the allegation of spending the money without following due process.

Here is Ita Enang, aide to the President.

Ita Enang even continued to lie here when in the real sense, money had already been paid without APPROVAL from National Assembly. He even went ahead to start quoting some sections of the constitution.

Mark the word "undergoing" and look at Enang's concluding remark on the matter.

Wait for it.

To call Enang a liar, PMB wrote a letter dated APRIL 13 to National Assembly asking for a new phrase in Nigeria "ANTICIPATORY APPROVAL" on the Tucano deal which same Presidency had earlier denied. Liars!!!

For the benefit of doubt, let us look at some of the excuses being peddled around.

1. That the deadline given by US was Feb 2018.

My Response: The letter of offer/acceptance was given by US govt in Dec 2017 & the governors gave approval for $1b for the deal same December.

So, the Presidency had enough time to have communicated same to National Assembly and ask them to incorporate the money into the 2018 budget that is yet to be passed.

Anything outside this is a breach of our constitution. Simple as APC right!!!

The second excuse is that:

Because of the ongoing Executive-Legislative crisis, National Assembly might stall the deal by not approving on time.

Again, a big lie. After all, the govt is simply inserting the new item into the 2018 budget.

Here is my concluding remark, this government came to power on the hallmark of respecting the rule of law and more importantly, to be transparent in its dealing. On this deal, the government was not transparent and did not respect the principle of rule of law.

End!!.