Following their arrest, the Federal Government said the money was meant for the purchase of arms for the prosecution of the ongoing war against terror but the South African government has threatened that the Federal Government may have to forfeit the money if proper explanations are not offered as to how such a huge amount of money was moved into the country in cash without the strict compliance with the relevant laws.
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In an interview with our correspondent, the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said South Africa should not return the money until it had carried out proper investigations.
He described the excuse given by the Federal Government as nonsensical and criminal.
He said it was unfortunate that the Federal Government failed to declare the amount that was being ferried to South Africa as stipulated in the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011.
When asked if it was right for South Africa to hold unto Nigerian tax payers’ money despite the explanation given by the Federal Government, Mohammed said, “What are you talking about? Are you defending the nonsense the Federal Government is doing?
“They breached the law by failing to declare the money that was on-board the plane. Imagine if I was the one that was caught with that amount of money or if it was Mallam el-Rufai (an APC leader)? We would probably be languishing in prison by now.”
Mohammed, who appeared before the British House of Commons last week, told our correspondent that one of the reasons he visited the British parliament was to expose the lackadaisical attitude of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration in the fight against terrorism.
“I went there because they (Federal Government) had been giving the world the impression that we were the ones behind terrorism but I was able to point out that it was those close to Jonathan that were the true sponsors of terrorism and they have been exposed,” he said.
He said the leaders of the APC suspected that a former Borno State Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, was a Boko Haram sponsor even while he was in the party and were already investigating him when he defected to the Peoples Democratic Party.
“We knew that Sheriff was always PDP’s mole so we were not surprised when he quickly jumped ship after he discovered that the game was up,” he said.
Reacting to the endorsement of Jonathan as the consensus candidate by the PDP, Mohammed said it was evidence that the PDP lacked internal democracy but vowed that the APC would hold a transparent presidential primary.
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