Danjuma named in PanamaPapers scandal

A former Minister of Defence, Lt. Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (retd.), has been named among prominent Nigerians that operated foreign accounts and had foreign companies while holding public office.

German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, had on Sunday released the Panama Papers, the biggest leak in the history of data journalism, publishing online 11.5 million documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which showed how prominent people including Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, a former governor of Delta State, James Ibori, ex-Senate President, David Mark and others criminally hid money using anonymous shell corporations across the world.

The Panamanian law firm, regarded as one of the world’s most secretive companies, according to the documents, has helped clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade tax.

According to documents sighted by online medium, Premium Times, Danjuma is a long time user of offshore entities, and the Mossac Fonseca files have now exposed another of his companies.

The database, Opencorporates, indicate that Danjuma served as director and vice-president of Cross Group Holdings International, which was registered in Panama on October 15, 1976.

Danjuma was still in service and was Chief of Army Staff at the time the company was incorporated.

He was also director of Zara Logistics, a company registered in Cyprus on September 2, 1993.

Another company is – Eastcoast Investments Inc., which Danjuma incorporated in Nassau, in the Bahamas, on March 25, 1997.

At inception, Mr. Danjuma and a certain Colin Marcel Dixon were directors of the company.

Premium Times learnt that the general formed the company to enable him to do business with Scancem International of Norway when the latter decided to expand its involvement in Africa to include a project in Nigeria.

But the company soon became embroiled in a messy bribery scandal, with Scancem, according to court papers, later buying out Eastcoast Investment from the project on December 1, 2003.

It was later determined that “the money went mainly to another account, Eastcoast Investment had, to Gen. T.Y. Danjuma and a certain The Volta Company.”

The retired general was also among global personalities found to maintain secret accounts, operated with codes, with the Swiss branch of banking giant, HSBC.

He was linked to HSBC account 15731CD, which was opened in 1993 and closed in 2001.

Court documents obtained by Premium Times independently of the leaked Mossac Fonseca files described Scancem, Mr. Danjuma’s business partner, as being “involved in extensive bribery and corruption in a number of countries in Africa.”

All attempts to speak with Danjuma proved abortive as he neither responded to telephone calls nor a text message sent to his telephone as of 9pm by our correspondent.

Danjuma named in PanamaPapers scandal

Northern Leaders Key To Ending Insurgency, Says Kuku

The Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs and Chairman Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Mr Kingsley Kuku, on Thursday said northern leaders were key to ending insurgency.

The Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs and Chairman Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP),

KuKu expressed this opinion at a forum on Curbing Militancy in Nigeria, organised by Nextier, a public sector advisory firm, in Abuja.

He said the lessons learnt from the PAP can be leveraged to curb the present Boko Haram crisis

“The programme has achieved its core goals of solving the militant agitation in the Niger Delta of Nigeria and increasing the nation’s crude oil production.

“The PAP reduced violence and created room for socio-economic development of the region”, he said

The presidential adviser held that “the Niger Delta is poor despite its wealth of natural resources.

“The perceived insensitivity of the government resulted in militancy that impacted the quality of life in the region and economy of the country”.

He said PAP was a success because it had national ownership and was conceived as a process and not a programme, and had managers that enjoyed the trust of the ex-agitators.

Kuku noted that when the Boko Haram crisis started, nothern leaders failed to condemn it thinking that it was a move against President Goodluck Jonathan.

He said political, traditional, religious and women leaders and other elites from the north hold the key to resolving the puzzle associated with the Boko Haram insurgency.

Kuku challenged them to borrow a leaf from their compatriots from the Niger Delta.

He said leaders in Niger Delta took up the challenge to end militancy in the region.

“This culminated in a truce and eventual granting of amnesty by the federal government, thus ushering in the extant peace in the area”. (NAN)

Northern Leaders Key To Ending Insurgency, Says Kuku