Nigeria suspends intel chief over $43 million cash stash

ABUJA, Nigeria – Nigeria’s president on Wednesday suspended the country’s intelligence chief over the recent discovery of $43 million in cash in a Lagos apartment.

President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered an investigation into how the National Intelligence Agency came to claim the money and whether any laws were broken, a government statement said.

The discovery of the cash in both local and foreign currencies by the country’s anti-corruption commission caused a sensation in this West African nation where graft is rampant.

Buhari has ordered the suspension of the director-general of the intelligence agency, Ambassador Ayo Oke, until the investigation is complete, the statement said.

The investigation has been given two weeks to report to the president.

Separately, Buhari has ordered an investigation into alleged wrongdoing in the award of contracts under the government office that co-ordinates the humanitarian response in Nigeria’s northeast, which for years has suffered from the Boko Haram Islamic insurgency.

The secretary to the federal government, David Babachir Lawal, has been suspended pending that investigation, the statement said.

Buhari won election in 2015 on a promise to halt corruption.