Former Special Assistant to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on public affairs, Doyin Okupe, says he never got along with erstwhile National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki.
Okupe was reacting to press stories that he is also a beneficiary of #DasukiGate–the umbrella name for the looting of defense budgets under Dasuki who has since been taken in by investigators.
Related: How Jonathan paid companies linked to Doyin Okupe to hack unfriendly websites
A slew of persons who received parts of the $2.1bn earmarked for arms purchase from Dasuki, have also been arrested and are individually facing prosecution.
Okupe said Dasuki did try to kick him out of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, alongside the former special adviser on political affairs to Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak.
“Unknown to many Nigerians, and quite usual with politics at the top, for reasons not clearly defined, I never got along well with colonel Dasuki retired,” he said in a statement.
“In fact, he twice told me to my face that he will get Alhaji Gulak and myself out of former president Jonathan’s administration. Colonel Dasuki would never have patronised me or any associate of mine. It was for this reason I was totally schemed out from the entire presidential campaign in 2015.
“Mr Ilan Salman is my friend and we did business together few years ago. But I have not had any business dealing with him since 2007 when he resigned his membership of the company we formed together.
“The name of his offshore company Romix Technology and the company we ran together Romix Soilfix International Limited, bear similar first names ‘Romix’. But that is where the similarities end.
“Mr Ilan apparently registered his new company, Romix Technologies after he resigned from Romix Soilfix International Limited in 2007. He probably used this name because we both loved the name ‘Romix’. Even when our South African partners from whom we derived the name Romix Soilfix broke up and told us to drop the name, we both flatly refused.
“It is for this reason that after Mr Ilan left the company, I also went ahead and registered two more companies named Romix farms limited and Romix homes limited.
“Romix Technologies is an offshore company registered in Cyprus. I am not the owner, I have no relationship with it neither do I have any financial interest. I had no knowledge of their bidding for contracts from the office of the National Security Adviser. I was not informed when they were awarded any contract neither was I in the know of what and when they were paid.
“I have not benefited financially from the proceeds of payment for the said contract neither can any money be traced to me, or any of my family members or associates,” Okupe explained.
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