by Ahmed I. Shekarau & Austine Odo / 2005-12-29

Two aides of General Marwa have alleged that the current probe of the former military administrator of Lagos state is “politically motivated”, and an alleged witch-hunt intended to stop the general’s bid to run for the presidency in 2007.

Specifically, the Public Relations Manager of Albarka Air Plc, Chief Biodun Odunuga and Secretary General of the Marwa Movement, Engineer Mohammed Lawal told Daily Trust separately that they suspect the National Security Adviser, Lieutenant General Aliyu Gusau (rtd) mopped up the case to smear their boss’ image and scuttle his ambition to run for the presidency in 2007.

According to them, “the case was investigated in 2001 and nothing culpable had been found against him (Marwa), so why are they reviving the matter now?”.
But Daily Trust findings show that General Marwa himself did not deny involvement in the deal, though he denied “personally making any monetary gain” from the transaction.

Also, a letter written by Marwa himself to president Olusegun Obasanjo on the matter dated 15th of April, 2004, which was shown to Daily Trust states that the two times military administrator confirmed that Late General Sani Abacha had indeed directed him in 1995 to sign a contract on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), for the supply of 1,500 TATA vehicles for use by some establishments in the country.

According to Daily Trust findings, sometime in 1995, Late General Abacha directed General Marwa, who was then a Lieutenant Colonel working as Nigeria’s Military Attaché in the Nigerian Mission in New York, to proceed to India and make arrangements for the importation of 1,500 TATA personnel carriers and trucks into the country. Our investigations show that 1,000 of the vehicles were meant for the military and the police, while the remaining 500 were for operations of the erstwhile National Electoral Commission (NECON).

Further investigations show that Marwa inspected the TATA vehicles at the company’s plant in India through a link man said to have been introduced to him by the Nigerian Presidency by name Mr. Romanus Nwosisi, who is now deceased.
The PDP presidential aspirant in his letter of 15th April last year to president Obasanjo, said he was “surprised” that the late head of state directed him (Marwa) to go ahead and sign the TATA supply contract on behalf of the FGN “without passing it through the defence headquarters or ministry of defence or even the ministry of finance”. But that he (Marwa) had to comply because he knew then that he was dealing with “a dictator”.

Marwa also admitted in that letter that shortly after the transaction was concluded and he returned to his beat in the United States, he received a telephone call from late General Abacha instructing him to submit the number of an account through which some money would be transferred. But that such money was only meant to be remitted to someone else, and not for himself.

However, a presidency source who showed our reporters documents to back his arguments, told Daily Trust yesterday in Abuja that “the military administration of General Abdulsalami Abubakar took particular interest in the contract because it realised it was inflated by about 100 percent.

“More so, it was discovered in the course of investigations as you can see in these documents that General Abacha’s cut in the deal which was 50percent of the value of the entire contract sum worth over $100million was transferred to the Abacha family through an account the particulars of which were given to Vaswani by General Marwa.

“The government also became interested in a $5million and another $7million making $12million which was paid into an account in Geneva, and then to General Marwa’s account in New Jersey, then to Nairobi in Kenya and Cayman Islands, and other destinations before approximately $7million finally landed into Albarka’s account”, the source stated.

The source who will not disclose the account numbers said while denying insinuations about the political motive of the probe that, “the documents are there and Marwa himself has not denied these transactions. All he is claiming is that in his honour, he has not personally benefited from a kobo of the entire sum”.

Daily Trust reliably gathered that president Obasanjo had earlier asked General Marwa to refund the said amount allegedly credited to his corporate account so that he would be cleared of all allegations, but that the Adamawa-born PDP aspirant maintained his innocence.

Our source revealed that the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister for Justice, Chief Bayo Ojo was earlier directed to “expedite action” on the investigation, but upon advise from the AGF the EFCC was asked to probe the issue further.

Meanwhile, the two aides of Marwa wondered why a case which was closed in 2001 when their boss was not found culpable, was being resurrected at this time, moreso as Marwa could not have disobeyed the orders of the Commander in chief of the armed forces.

According to them, the whole issue is fixated on politics to ensure that Marwa does not realize his presidential ambition.