Nigeria's Abacha Gave me $2M not $5M – Rawlings Confesses

Former President Jerry John Rawlings has rejected claims that he received $5 million from former Nigerian President Sani Abacha.

Mr. Rawlings while speaking to the Guardian Newspaper in Nigeria, admitted receiving the money from then President of Nigeria, but said it was $ 2 million and not $5 million as alleged.

Mr. Rawlings, who allegedly received the money in 1998, was rebuked by the opposition New Patriotic Party.

The confession by the former president comes at a time when some opposition parties are demanding investigations into the $100,000 Ford gift given to President John Dramani Mahama by a Burkinabe contractor.

Prior to the confession, Mr. Rawlings had failed to confirm or deny the story which was first reported by the Chronicle Newspaper.

Mr. Rawlings' Ministers at the time, as well as Majority MPs, shot down an attempt by Minority  NPP MPs at the time to push for an investigation into the unlawful payments, and a subsequent impeachment of Mr. Rawlings.

In 1998 when the matter of the alleged bribe money from Nigeria broke, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) founded by Jerry Rawlings put up a strong defence for him when the matter was brought to the floor of Parliament for investigations to be conducted into the matter by the then Speaker of Parliament, D.F Annan.

When the minority lead the campaign, their motion was shot down because the Speaker had ruled at the time that the minority did not bring enough evidence to support their call for investigations.

“When General Abubakar took over, I told him to watch out. That that report in the papers about $5million was $2million and not $5million. He didn't make any comment. He didn't say anything. Obasanjo took over I thought I should straighten it out with him. The comment he made was: 'Yes, that is how they behave. When they are given something to take somewhere, they will take the majority, the bigger share.' That was the comment Obasanjo made,” he said

“I wasn't used to those things. Otherwise, I could have called Abacha. I don't even think I even called him over that. Maybe I should have called him to say thank you for the $2million and then he would have called his people to order. You see what I mean? I wasn't used to money being thrown up and down. Money was not my thing. Yes, we were poor enough as a country, but we were working day and night to making sure we put the country on a solid foundation for economic explosion. We had our pride and our dignity was not out for sale,” he added.

He spoke on other issues about Ghana and the African continent.