“My Version Of The Story” Ex Presidential Aide, Doyin Okupe On Arrest By EFCC For N100m Payment From Ex NSA, Sambo Dasuki

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Former Spokesperson to President Jonathan, Dr Doyin Okupe, has released a detailed report of his encounter with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), denying some media reports, while telling his own version of the story.

In a statement, entitled “my response to media report about EFCC summon”, Okupe explained that contrary to some reports in the media, he was only invited and asked questions on three areas.
Part of the statement read, “In my interactions with the EFCC, I have been asked to explain only three issues so far: why I received N50m from the office of the National Security Adviser at the onset of my appointment, and what I used the money for.

“Why I was paid N10m monthly by the Office of the National Security Adviser and why I received another sum of N50m from the NSA in October 2014.”

Okupe, who served as presidential aide between 2012 to 2015, explained in the statement that “the initial N50m was approved by the President to be paid to me from his security vote. N10m was to furnish my rented living apartment and another N10m for my office. The balance N30m was approved as take- off grant for my office.”

“The N10m I received from the Office of the National Security Adviser monthly was to run my office, pay salaries of staff, including overheads, pay expenses for our numerous press conferences, pay for publications in newspapers, magazines, local and foreign, television programmes, bulletins, and media consultants who assist and facilitate our work. I had about 23 staff, 11 were graduates, out of which five were Masters degrees holders. Details were submitted to EFCC.

“The second N50m was approved again by Mr President when I reported to him that the monthly allowance has been cut from N10m to N5m and that I was no longer in a position to keep running a 1hr NTA network programme called INSIGHT which was aired 9-10am every Friday and some other days of the week. We paid NTA about N1.2m monthly for airtime. Two presenters were paid N600, 000 monthly. We paid for tapes and editing per programme.

“Besides, we also pay honorarium for guests either directly or indirectly in form of hotel bills for those outside Abuja, or transportation. This cost averagely N500, 000 weekly or about N 2m monthly. All in all, we spent about N4m monthly on the programme.

“Mr President promised to help with the expenses. About a few months later when we had incurred some debts, the NSA sent me a sum of N50m which was to cover the cost of the programme for 12 months (12×N4m=N48m)‎.”

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