LAGOS, Federal Republic of Nigeria. As Nigeria’s anticorruption war gathers momentum, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has said it wanted to interrogate some beneficiaries of the N120m compensation paid to some newspaper outfits even as the Sun Newspaper recently announced that they have returned the N9million it received from the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), which was given to them from the office of the embattled former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.
Managing Director / Editor- in- Chief of The Sun, Mr. Eric Osagie, in a statement said it took the decision to return the money following the controversies it has generated and also as a means to come clean.
“The Management of The Sun Publishing Limited has considered the public outcry and diverse controversies generated among media houses, the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) and the public over the N120 million paid by the Goodluck Jonathan administration as compensation to newspaper companies for the unlawful seizure of their newspapers and stoppage of circulation by armed soldiers in several cities across the country in June 2014,” the statement read.
“After the unlawful action of the military, to which The Sun lost millions of naira, we had signified the intention to commence litigation against the Federal Government along with other affected newspaper companies. However, at the level of the NPAN, which The Sun is a member, a decision was collectively taken to accept the Presidency’s offer of peaceful settlement in place of litigation in the interest of peace and national se¬curity.
“We were later informed of the payment of N120 million compensation out of which the sum of N9 million was paid to The Sun Management by the NPAN. At the time the com¬pensation was paid, we had no inkling whatso-ever under which expen¬diture sub-head in the Presidency the fund was sourced and that it was allegedly part of the funds meant for the purchase of arms.
“In the light of the foregoing, we have returned the cheque of N9 million to the NPAN for onward transmission to the source through which it came.”
The fund given to the newspaper houses is believed to have come from the $2.1 billion intended for arming Nigeria’s military against Boko Haram but were instead funneled into the accounts of several high-profile politicians, media moguls, and military officers during President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
Credit: Leadership (Nigeria)
