Publisher of ThisDay newspaper, Nduka Obaigbena, had in a letter to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, confirmed receipt of N670,000,000 from the office of the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.

Obaigbena’s letter was in response to an invitation by the EFCC, as part of its investigation into the $2.1 billion arms deal scam.

In the letter, he gave a breakdown of the funds paid to him in 3 tranches explaining that N120,000,000 of the payments was distributed to 12 newspaper outfits, at N10 million for each newspaper.

The payment was stated to be compensation for the blockade of newspaper circulation by the military in Abuja in June, 2015.

However, one of the newspapers that filed the said claim for the compensation, Daily Trust has revealed that while they received money from Obaigbena, it was not N10 million as he claimed.

The news outfit explained that N9 million was paid to them by the president of the Newspaper Proprietors Association, NPAN, who happens to be Obaigbena.

In a statement released by the outfit: “Media Trust Limited submitted a claim of 11 million Naira based on the production cost of the copies printed but not allowed to be sold during the period of the siege. The NPAN President told us that 10 million Naira was approved to be paid to us but that since the payment was as a result of the intervention of NPAN and it was battling to raise funds for its own operations, one million Naira was deducted for the use of the association and our company was paid the sum of 9 million Naira as compensation.”

It was mutually agreed by Daily Trust and NPAN that N1,000,000 of the N10,000,000 will remain with NPAN for its operations.

Another newspaper outfit who filed the same compensation claims however has categorically denied getting any such payments from Obaigbena.

The People’s Media Limited, publishers of the People’s Daily has denied receiving any money from the NPAN president in whatever guise.

In a statement released by the outfit, Ali Ali, the Chief Operating Officer revealed: “One of the revelation on the current inquisition of the tenure of the former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) is that this newspaper, among several other national dailies, received the sum of N10million from the office of the former NSA through Nduka Obaigbena, the President of Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria, NPAN.”

“This is new to us. At no time such money was made available to us in whatever guise. We wish to state clearly that it is false and therefore, wish to completely distance this medium from this revelation. We don’t know of others, therefore, we can’t speak for them.”