In a desperate moves to stop the impending sack of the Coordinator of
the presidential Amnesty Program, Prof. Charles Dokubo, for
masterminding the looting of over N23billion from the program between
2018 to date, Transportation Minister, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi has hired a
United States lobby group to pressure President Mohammadu Buhari to stop
the sack, sources knowledgeable about the moves told Pointblanknews.com.
Between March 2018 to date when Dokubo was named the Coordinator of the
Amnesty Program, the office has received N5billion monthly which has
either ended up in phony contracts packaged for the National Security
Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno, Amaechi, senior officials of
the Presidency and other senior management staff of the Amnesty Program,
according to Pointblanknews.com investigation.
Having lost out from the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC,
sources told Pointblanknews.com that Amaechi is desperate to keep his
hold on the Amnesty Program by instigating the reconfirmation of Prof.
Dokubo.
According to our sources, Amaechi, through the Amnesty program, paid
several thousands of dollars to a lobby group called Business Council
based in the United States. The lobby group brief is to pose as
investors wanting to invest in Nigeria and seeking to meet President
Buhari to discuss their areas of interest when the President arrives New
York for the United Nations General Assembly holding next week.
Pointblanknews.com gathered that upon meeting President Buhari, the
lobby group would then impress on the President to retain Dokubo as a
condition for their investment in Nigeria.
The group is scheduled to meet with Buhari at the sideline of the United
Nations General Assembly holding in a week time.
Sources disclosed that Amaechi has been very unsettled after his lackey
at the NDDC, Prof. Nelson Braimbafa, was sacked recently. He had hoped
that another of his lackey, Prof. Dokubo, at the Presidential Amnesty
program would survive the hammer despite having been implicated in the
wanton looting of funds.
Sensing the hammer on Dokubo, the former Rivers Governor began an
intense lobby to keep Dokubo.
He allegedly met Buhari shortly after the elections and sought for the
reappointment of the Amnesty Coordinator. While the response from the
President was not too sure, he started strategizing other moves,
including mobilizing groups and some section of the media to project his
protégé at the Amnesty office.
Sources confirmed to pointblanknews.com that Dokubo was recently in the
United States, where he met with officials of the lobby group to
strategize.
Pointblanknews.com gathered that Amaechi appears to have lost all in the
South-South zone after the emergence of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege as Deputy
Senate President, the highest ranking political office holder from the
zone and the emergence of Timipre Sylva as Petroleum Minister, Senator
Godswill Akpabio as Niger Delta Minister and Adams Oshiomhole as the
National Chairman of the ruling All progressive Congress, APC.
It would be recalled that in the last general elections, APC didn’t win
a single elective position in Rivers State as the state chapter of the
APC reverberated along fragmented, fractured lines with both Amaechi and
Magnus Abe laying claim to political leadership.
Analyst argue that should Amaechi lose the Amnesty office after losing
the NDDC, he would be left with no cash-cow as he is not very sure of
retaining NIMASA.
It would be recalled that the Presidential Aide was accused in a leaked
audio that went viral online by the Director of Finance and
Administration of the Presidential Amnesty Programme(PAP), Mr Ilem Ilem,
of scandalously awarding about N4.8billion contracts without tender,
thereby breaching extant contract procurement laws of the Federal
government.
Sources hinted that these allegations and a dozen others which are
currently the subject of investigations by anti-graft agencies may have
further widen the dragnet and tide of affairs against Dokubo.