Doyin Okupe: How I received N100m from Dasuki

Former Senior Special As­sistant on Public Affairs to the immediate past Pres­ident Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe, has opened up on the funds he received from the former National Securi­ty Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd).
Okupe, who admitted that he received N100 milllion from Dasuki on the instruction of Jonathan, explained how he spent the money.
In a Facebook post on Sun­day, Okupe, who was Jonathan’s spokesman between 2012 and 2015, said that based on the presidential order, he received N10 million monthly from Dasuki to pay salaries and run a weekly programme on the Nigerian Television Authori­ty (NTA).

Okupe, who also spoke on his detention and quizzing by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), lamented that the commis­sion exposed his health sta­tus, which he told the agency in confidence.
The EFCC had accused Okupe of receiving at various times N85 million from Dasuki.
But in his defence, Okupe said: “The initial N50 million was approved by the President to be paid to me from his se­curity vote. N10 million was to furnish my rented living apart­ment and another N10 million for my office. The balance of N30 million was approved as takeoff grant.
“The N10 million I received from the ONSA monthly was to run my office, pay salaries of members 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 members of staff, 11 were grad­uates, of whom five were Mas­ter’s degrees holders.
“The second N50 million was approved again by Mr. President when I reported to him that the monthly allow­ance had been cut from N10 million to N5 million and that I was no longer in position to keep running a one-hour NTA network programme called IN­SIGHT which was aired 9-10am every Friday.
“We paid NTA about N1.2 million monthly for airtime. Two presenters were paid N600,000 monthly. We paid for tapes and editing per pro­gramme. Besides, we also paid honorarium for guests either directly or in form of hotel bills (for those outside Abuja), or transportation.
“The lead presenter on IN­SIGHT earned N400,000 and the second presenter earned N200,000. Totaling N600,000, not N600 million,” Okupe ex­plained.
“This costs averagely N500,000 weekly or about N2 million monthly. All in all we spent about N4 million 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 this N50 million which was to cover the cost of the pro­gramme for 12 months,” he fur­ther said.
The former presidential spokesman added that the “monthly allowance was not my salary. It was meant to be used to run the office. Forty per­cent went on salaries,” he said, adding that “salary sheets with names and offices of employees were submitted to the EFCC. I was paid a salary of N853,000 per month through the office of the Secretary to the Govern­ment of the Federation (SGF).”
The EFCC had also inter­rogated Okupe for receiving N76.5 million for dubious con­tracts from a local government area in Niger State, saying his company handled over 20 con­struction companies who were duly awarded contracts for ru­ral roads over five years ago by the Niger State government.
According to him, some of the jobs are still ongoing.
On his health condition, Okupe said that he had a heart problem from childhood and disclosed it to EFCC operators to avoid being detained.
Okupe said: “I was born with Sinus Bradycadia, a non-disease based slowness of the heart. It precluded me from vigorous exercises from child­hood but I have by God’s grace been able to live a normal and active life.
“With age, the slowness grew worse and life-threat­ening. I sought medical help and went through a proce­dure at the Arrhythmia Cardi­ac Research Centre in Atlanta, where this defect was correct­ed. It was just a year ago and I am still under satellite monitor­ing from the USA. This is what I revealed to the EFCC and they made it a public issue,” he la­mented.