S’Africa won’t return seized $9.3m –Ex-defence minister

A former Minister of State for Defence, Mr. Demola Seriki, says the South African government will not return the $9.3m seized by South African authorities from two Nigerians and an Israeli a few weeks ago. The sum of money was recovered from the Nigerians and an Israeli in the South African country.

This is just a South African newspaper, City Press, reported that another $5.7m arms money from Nigeria had been seized.

Although the Federal Government had later claimed that the $9.3m was meant for the procurement of arms with which to fight insurgency, the South African government has since held unto the money on the grounds that Nigeria breached the anti-money laundering practice by failing to declare the money.

Seriki, who was also the Minister of State for the Interior, rubbished the excuse given by the Federal Government, insisting that the money would not be released.

He said, "It is just a flagrant fraud because you just took that money and put it in the treasury to develop South Africa because they will not release the money. I worked with a lot of international counterparts when I was minister of the interior and also as minister of state for defence.

"And I know that with monies of that nature, there is no way that kind of money can come back. The money is gone. That is the money that was meant to develop our nation when a lot of things are in a deplorable state and we are giving it to South Africa.

"Are we that generous that we give South Africa money just like despite the fact that we have a lot of their unfriendliness and inimical attitude towards us in the area of immigration policies because they have violated a lot under the laws of reciprocity? South Africa have violated a lot and still we are giving them free unsolicited money."

Seriki said the excuse given by the Federal Government was unacceptable because South Africa was not an arms producing country.

He said, "South Africa is not known as an arms nation. I cannot remember anytime where I saw a document of Nigeria buying arms from any part of Africa when I was with the Ministry of Defence. Why should we buy from our rival?

"Can Russia buy arms from the United States? Our major rival in Africa is South Africa. So, it is just a charade. They just play around with all these things as if Nigerian are all fools. They should give us a break."

BY ENIOLA AKINKUOTU