Immediate past Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Boss Mustapha, on Tuesday exonerated himself and former President Muhammadu Buhari from the alleged fraudulent payment of $6.2 million to foreign election monitoring observers.
He said that the letter credited to Buhari as author did not emanate from the Presidency while another one purported to have emanated from him and signed by him were forged documents.
Mustapha made the clarifications on Tuesday while giving evidence in the trial of former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory.
He said that one Jubrin Abubakar, who allegedly collected the $6.2 million cash on February 8, 2023, under the watch of Emefiele, was not a staff of the Office of the SGF and was not known to him.
Mustapha faulted two letters alleged to have emanated from the Presidency under Buhari and the Office of the SGF, noting that the letters did not conform with the standard with which the Presidency and SGF write letters.
He also denied receiving any amount from the said money.
Mustapha said, “All through my service year as the SGF, I never came across these documents it was claimed that Buhari signed. From the face value of this document, having served for five years and seven months as SGF, this document did not emanate from the president for the following reasons
A correspondence that has the seal of the Nigerian president does not carry a reference number. The seal is the authority.
“Secondly, I have looked at it and read, that FEC decisions are not transmitted by letters. They are transmitted through extracts after conclusions are adopted.
“Thirdly, I am the custodian of FEC, the president will not refer executives’ conclusions to me.
“Also, in all the five years and seven months, I have never heard of the terms special appropriation provision referred to. The terms known to me, my lord, are appropriation as provided by the appropriation act normally passed by the national assembly and when the government file drafts it brings supplementary appropriation.
“In all the correspondences I have received from Buhari, it has never had ‘please accept the assurance of my highest regard’. I am his subordinate, my correspondences do not carry that.
And lastly, looking at the signature, it is a failed attempt at reproducing Buhari’s signature. I will leave that to the experts.”
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had alleged that Emefiele forged the letters to defraud the Federal Government.
