Did Anyaoku Visit PMB To Beg For Jonathan?

PMB & Emeka Anyaoku

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has allegedly sent an emissary to beg his successor, Muhammadu Buhari not to probe his administration, Sahara Reporters claimed.

According to the online news medium, Jonathan was said to become panicky and thus sent former Commonwealth Secretary General, Emeka Anyaoku, to plead with President Buhari not to launch an official probe of his administration.

Several sources in Abuja, including aides of President Buhari, was said to have briefed SR exclusively about former President Jonathan’s dispatch of Mr. Anyaoku as an emissary to his successor. 

One of its sources said Jonathan moved quickly to send powerful intercessors to the Presidency after the Buhari administration began to question massive last-minute withdrawals and disappearance of more than $20 billion in government funds orchestrated by former President Jonathan as well as his closest ministers and aides.

A source familiar with Anyaoku’s desperate mission revealed that the former Commonwealth chief executive urged the new president to remember that Jonathan voluntarily decided not to contest the results of the March 28, 2015 presidential election, won by Buhari, on the understanding that he and his administration would not be subjected to a probe.

GEJ & Anyaoku

Sources disclosed that Anyaoku spent a little more than two hours in a close-door meeting Wednesday where he sought to prevail on President Buhari to halt the ongoing probe of what happened to billions of public funds during the last few months of the Jonathan government.

Before imploring Anyaoku to plead with President Buhari, Jonathan had also allegedly asked former military head of state, Abdulsalam Abubakar, to speak to the current president and suggest a suspension of all ongoing probes. 

GEJ & Abdulsalam

President Buhari has put in place several investigative committees to probe the illicit withdrawal and disbursement of public funds by the Jonathan administration. The presidential committees are charged with advising the administration on strategies for retrieving any public assets stolen by officials and cohorts of the Jonathan Presidency.

One of the committees was said to have already discovered that Jonathan and some members of his cabinet apparently colluded in the dying days of the previous government to loot billions of dollars. The funds were looted via the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Ministry of Finance, the Nigerian Maritime Authority, the Federal Capital Territory, and several other departments.

A source within the investigative committee revealed that Jonathan and his closest aides and political appointees made illegal withdrawals of funds to finance his failed bid for re-election.Former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has stated that former President Jonathan asked her to withdraw more than $1.2 billion from the excess crude account.

Okonjo-Iweala in the eyes of the storm

Even though Okonjo-Iweala continues to maintain publicly that she did nothing wrong during her tenure, a source told SR that the former minister, who coordinated economic affairs during the former president’s tenure, has been quietly cooperative with the Buhari administration. 

According to the source, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala has offered what amounts to a dossier of corrupt deals authorized by the former president.