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Nigerian ambassador goes into hiding as NIA launches manhunt

 

The Nigerian Ambassador to Chad, Mohammed Dauda, has gone underground, triggering a massive manhunt for him.
Sources familiar with the matter said the diplomat slipped into hiding after claiming his life was in danger following the testimony he gave a House of Representatives committee last month.
The government had sometime last year recalled Dauda from his post in N’djamena to take temporary charge of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) after the organisation’s Director General, Ayodele Oke, was suspended.
Oke was asked to step aside as authorities investigate a huge cash haul belonging to the NIA uncovered at an apartment in Lagos.
Dauda acted as head of the security agency from November 2017 to January 2018 when he was replaced by an aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, Ahmed Rufai Abubakar.
Sources told Premium Times that after he was replaced as head of the NIA, Dauda was asked to return to his post in N’djamena to continue with his tour of duty.
The official however did not comply, saying his life would be in danger in Chad, his cover as a security operative having been blown with his appointment as acting head of the NIA.
Dauda is said to have also argued that having now been exposed as a spy, he could no longer function as an ambassador anywhere in the world.
While contending that he could be eliminated if he returned to Chad, the official also failed to report to the headquarters of the NIA for a possible fresh posting, our sources said.
“He is saying those he accused of corruption are after him as well,” one source said.
Dauda had appeared before a House of Representatives committee and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at separate times during which he made damaging allegations of corruption against members of a panel raised by President Buhari to recommend ways of repositioning the NIA.
Members of the panel, led by a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babagana Kingibe, have denied wrongdoings, saying Dauda was only trying to get back at them because he felt they were responsible for his removal.

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