How President Buhari dropped ministerial nominee for accepting $5M from Dasuki

According to reports, President Muhammadu Buhari was forced to drop his political associate, Lawal Jafaru Isa as a ministerial nominee after discovering that the latter had accepted $5 million from former National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki.

Isa was supposed to have been nominated as the Kano State nominee but Buhari picked former Chief of Army Staff, Abdulrahman Dambazzau instead, The Cable reports.

“Buhari initially wanted Isa, but he was disappointed when he got this report on him,” a source in the Presidency said.

“Indeed, Buhari delayed naming his cabinet partly because it turned out that many of the people he initially wanted to pick did not pass the integrity test,” the source added.

Isa has been arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in connection with investigations into the $2.1 billion arms deal fraud which Dasuki allegedly spearheaded.

The former NSA reportedly gave the money to Isa in order to secure his support in the 2015 general elections.

Dasuki is at the center of the massive money laundering investigation and is alleged to have supervised the looting of the funds which were meant for the procurement of arms for Nigeria's military.

He was arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) on December 1, 2015 and handed over to the EFCC the day after.