By: The News Magazine
Transcorp
President Obasanjo used his
position to corner considerable shares of Transcorp, a blue chip company that
was formed overnight to corner juicy contracts and make fat company
acquisitions. It was incorporated in November 2004 and officially launched on
21 July 2005, at the Presidential Banquet Hall, State House, Abuja, with
Obasanjo as the special guest of honour.
The Transcorp matter was so
serious that Chief Gani Fawehinmi, the human rights lawyer, dragged the former
president to the Code of Conduct Bureau. He wanted Obasanjo tried over the
activities of Transcorp and his shareholding in the company seized or forfeited
to the federal government as provided for under item 18(2)c of the Code of
Conduct for public officers contained in the fifth schedule, part 1 of the 1999
Constitution.
Fawehinmi lamented that during
its formal launch on Thursday 21 July 2005, Obasanjo announced some concessions
to the corporation as part of government support and encouragement.
These include: Licence to build a
400,000-barrel per day refinery, licence to build an independent power plant,
access to the federal government cassava project for the construction of
cassava processing exports facility, designed land mass for the construction of
free port facilities, continued support to help open up market on the African
continent and to make Transcorp a partner in Nigeria’s current policy on
private/public partnership, creating additional opportunities to develop large
scale projects in oil and gas, power and information and communications technology,
ICT.
As Fawehinmi put it, the company
acquired three prime business interests from Nigeria: four oil blocks, OPL218,
219, 209 and 220 allocated to it on 21 July 2005 by Obasanjo when it was
launched; Nicon-Hilton, Abuja in October 2005 for $105million and NITEL on 3
July 2006 for $750million.
The lawyer noted that the
Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, and Chairman of
Transcorp, Dr. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, admitted before the House of
Representatives that the former president is a subscriber to Transcorp through
Obasanjo Holdings Limited.
He added that, the admission by
the Trustees–Elder Daniel Atsu and Barrister Lucky Egede–of Obasanjo Holdings
Limited compounds the constitutional illegality of the ex-president’s
involvement in Transcorp. Obasanjo Holdings Limited, the lawyer maintained, is
the nominee of President Olusegun Obasanjo in Transcorp and acts on behalf of
the president as a cover.
He argued: “for the president to
allocate oil fields or blocs as the Minister of Petroleum Resources to
Transcorp, a company in which he has substantial shares, is clearly an abuse of
office contrary to section 15(5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, 1999 which provides that, “the state shall abolish all corrupt practices
and abuse of power.”
The former president used his
influence to sway the purchase of NITEL and Nicon-Hilton Hotel in favour of
Transcorp, a practice which Fawehinmi regarded as “a corrupt act and violation
of the code of conduct.”
The
Presidential Library
When Obasanjo launched his N7
billion library project, government contractors, banks, businessmen, governors,
government functionaries and hangers-on fell over one another to donate N4
billion, while the oil majors operating in Nigeria put in US$20 million. Those
who donated were a consortium of banks – N622million; 36 state governors –
N360million; MikeAdenuga-N250million; Aliko Dangote and friends- N200million;
Femi Otedola- N200million; Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA community-
US$1million; Ogun State governor-N100million; Obasanjo Holdings- N100million;
Sunny Odogwu-N100million; Arisekola Alao-N100million etc.
Also, Fawehinmi took Obasanjo to
court, saying that he abused his office and violated the constitution because,
the presence of the big donors meant he used his office to “force” out the
money from the corporate organisations and those seeking one favour or the
other.
Excess
Crude Account
When he was in power, Obasanjo
withdrew N2.1billion from the excess crude oil funds. That was in March 2006,
when he explained that he wanted to use the money to supplement the cost of the
extension of the national census. However, the former Nigerian leader failed or
refused to inform the National Assembly or those who elected him into power for
almost three months.
It was only after the Senate
Committee on Finance and Appropriation began to turn its gaze in that direction
that Obasanjo wrote a letter to the House of Representatives, claiming
$17,290,067 (about N2.1 billion) was withdrawn after he had convened an emergency
meeting of the stakeholders–some state governors and the Revenue Mobilisation
Allocation and Fiscal Commission members.
However, analysts maintained that
Section 80(3) of the 1999 Constitution states that no monies shall be withdrawn
from any public fund of the federation, “unless the issue of those money has
been authorised–not by governors or stakeholders–by an Act of the National
Assembly.”
Petroleum
Trust Development Fund, PTDF
Obasanjo was the first to stir
the hornets’ net on this matter when he accused Vice President Atiku Abubakar
of corrupt enrichment. According to the EFCC document which Obasanjo dangled
with glee, Atiku was alleged to have diverted a sum of $125 million approved
for the operation of the PTDF to the Equatorial Trust Bank, owned by Otunba
Mike Adenuga, and Trans International Bank, TIB, which, thereafter, gave N400
million to MOFAS Shipping Company, owned by Otunba Oyewole Fasawe. EFCC also
connected Adenuga’s payment of $20 million for his Globacom licence to PTDF
money lodged in his bank.
From October 2003, according to
the document, MOFAS paid more than N500 million to Umar Pariya, Personal
Assistant to the former Vice-President, while N61 million was paid by the
company directly to Atiku and N60 million directly to Musa Garba, a contractor
who works for Atiku’s ABTI American University. Atiku responded with a
ballistic missile that threw Obasanjo off his perch. Speaking through his media
aide, Garba Shehu, Atiku said that Obasanjo, his family, businesses, native
community and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, benefited from the PTDF money.
He revealed that Bodunde
Adeyanju, Obasanjo’s Personal Assistant, made over 100 visits to TIB, Abuja,
located at Tofa House in the Central Business District, between 1999 and 2004.
“The truth of the matter is that there is a big linkage between Chief Obasanjo
and Otunba Fasawe, contrary to the claims that the President has made.
There are cheques worth over N100
million issued to IBAD Nigeria Limited, a construction company solely owned by
Obasanjo, from Fasawe’s MOFAS TIB accounts,” Garba revealed.
Shehu charged further that Fasawe
made some direct payments to Obasanjo’s Africa Leadership Forum, ALF, and to
the Obasanjo Campaign Organisation. “Also, a TIB Abuja branch cheque of N4
million was issued to Ibogun-Olaogun Development Association on 26th
February, 2004. Ibogun-Olaogun is Obasanjo’s village,” Garba added for effect.
Garba spilled the beans further,
claiming that from 1999 to the elections in 2003, Adeyanju, on behalf of
Obasanjo, collected over N3 billion from MOFAS account at TIB, Abuja branch.
Atiku further revealed to the Senate Committee on the Fund how Obasanjo paid a
staggering N250 million of PTDF money to a lawyer to register a company, Galaxy
Backbone.
NNPC
Funds
Like a possessive, jealous
husband, Obasanjo clung to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources under which is
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Chief Audu Ogbeh once told
TheNEWS: “I was National Chairman of PDP for over three years. I was also
honorary Special Adviser on Agriculture.
I know and I was told by many
ministers that President Obasanjo did not for once bring any memo for the award
of oil bloc or contract in the petroleum sector to council.”
Obasanjo, through his Chief of
Staff, General Abdullahi Mohammed (retd.), allegedly used the NNPC to
unilaterally award contracts without regard to tender or competitive bidding. As
reported by this magazine in the past, Mohammed, in a letter entitled, “Request
for Revalidation of Approval for NNPC funding on the Nigerian Navy” and dated
18 August 2006, merely stated the importance of procurement of spare parts for
the Navy and Obasanjo directed NNPC to award the contract.
Ten days later, Mohammed approved
a contract for the local refit of NN ships and procurement of spare parts at
the cost of N4.63 billion.
Obasanjo also wrote a letter to
the then Group Managing Director, NNPC, Engineer Funso Kupolokun, asking the
corporation to fund the training of 50 individuals and establish media and
operational centres in Abuja, Warri and Port Harcourt for N1.19 billion.
This lack of due process also
manifested in the award of contracts handled by Kinetic Ltd., which supplied
193 Cobra Armoured vehicles for the Nigerian Army at the cost of $35.7 million
and was paid through Bankers Guarantee No. 550-0-0446905 with Invoice No.
STK/2007/088B.
This contract was fixed in
January 2007 by the former Chief of Army Staff, Major-General Owoye Azazi, on
behalf of the Federal Government. Singapore Kinetics was, through the NNPC,
given an “advance payment”of $35.7million.
Falana, in his suit, alleged that
from 1999 to 2007, Obasanjo had withdrawn over N1trillion unauthorised and
un-appropriated by the National Assembly, from the NNPC account and the
Federation Account.
A
New Revenue Arrangement
At the height of his civilian
dictatorship, Obasanjo whimsically altered the revenue allocation arrangement
so much that the 36 state governors, including those in his party, PDP, filed a
suit at the Supreme Court against him on 16 September 2002. They alleged that
Obasanjo acted unconstitutionally by coming up with a new revenue formula
without the approval of the National Assembly.
Two months earlier, Obasanjo
approved a controversial amendment to the Revenue Allocation Act, giving 54.68
per cent, instead of 56 per cent, while the state governments and local
governments received 24.72 per cent and 20.60 per cent instead of 24 and 20 per
cent respectively. The Governors charged: “The modification order issued by the
president is a violation of the judgment of the Supreme Court.”
Money
Given To Ghana
Obasanjo, in July, 2004,
whimsically granted Ghana and the Republic of Sao Tome and Principe $45 million
loans. It was after questions were raised that he rushed to the National
Assembly. Ghana’s share of $40 million was to help it complete its part of
financing of the West African Gas project while the remaining $5 million was to
enable Sao Tome and Principe tackle some immediate problems.
Other
Withdrawals
On 9 September 2005, Obasanjo
wrote a letter to the Senate, requesting approval to withdraw $2.4billion from
the account as the government’s counterpart fund for the Power Sector
Development Scheme, PSDS, and $12.4 billion to offset Nigeria’s debt to the
Paris Club. Although the Senate approved the $12.4 billion to settle the
balance of the debt owed the Paris Club, it resolved that this was possible
after it had been appropriated by relevant authority as required by law.
But Obasanjo withdrew the $12.4
billion from the Federation Account, instead of the Consolidated Revenue Fund
Account, which the upper legislative chamber recommended, and he also took $2.4
billion PSDS fund without waiting for the approval of the relevant authorities.
That time, Chairman, House of
Representatives Committee on Public Finance and Appropriation, Farouk Lawan,
argued that Obasanjo’s action was illegal. He wondered why, for instance,
Obasanjo’s “request for fund outside the Appropriation Act was never brought to
the National Assembly for consideration and possible approval.”
Nigeria
Sao-Tome and Principe Joint Development Authority, JDA
The JDA was formally inaugurated
in January 2002 to explore crude oil in the Gulf of Guinea and the strait
between Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe. According to the treaty, which would
last for 45 years, with a review due after 30 years, 60 per cent of resources
would be for Nigeria, while 40 per cent would be for Sao Tomé and Principe.
But the Obasanjo government
changed the goalpost in the middle of the match just one year after this
treaty, a development that soured the relationship between the two countries.
Trouble started after the 2003
first licensing round, FLR, of oil bloc awards. In 2005, the Sao Tome
Attorney-General, Adelino Pereira, investigated an allegation raised by a
United States of America-based major oil company on certain shady deals it said
characterised the FLR awards by the JDA. The investigations were backed by the
World Bank and Dobie Langenkamp, a professor of Energy at the University of
Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.
According to TheNEWS’ earlier
report, the protesting oil company bid substantially higher than the Nigerian
companies that were eventually awarded concession.
“But alleged political
manipulation and certain option rights to Environmental Remediation Holding
Corporation, ERHC, the major beneficiary of the awards, frustrated the US firm
to abandon the cause even though it was far more qualified and possesses the
requisite financial, technical and managerial capabilities to handle the lead
operations in the JDZ than the favoured companies.”
EHRC is owned by Chief Emeka
Offor, a controversial politician and friend to Obasanjo. Other figures close
to Obasanjo were fingered as beneficiaries of the award: Chief Anthony Anenih,
now Nigerian Ports Authority chairman, who owns controlling shares in A &
Harmattan Ltd., which won oil bloc 2; Godsonic Incorporated Oil and Gas, which
succeeded in bloc 4; Aliko Dangote clinched bloc 3 through his company, DEER.
So also did Mike Adenuga, whose Conoil won in bloc 4.
“Kema Chikwe, former Aviation
Minister,” this magazine wrote, “is believed to have recruited Hope Uzodinma,
an Obasanjo crony–who was recently arrested by the Economic and Financial
Commission over an alleged scam–to float Filtzim-Huzod Oil and gas. The
company, registered in the Cayman Islands, was yet another beneficiary, as was
Sahara Energy, owned by Tonye Cole, son of Dr. Patrick Dele Cole, a former
Special Adviser to Obasanjo…”
Apart from lack of a geological
or petroleum engineering academic or professional expertise, the companies, as
the Sao Tome government alleged, “equally lack the financial guarantee to
actualise operation.” The Sao Tome AG’s office alleged further: “The procedures
used to select the companies which received concessions contained serious flaws
and did not satisfy the minimum standards required for the award of such licences.”
The report views the Nigerian-owned companies awarded exploration rights as
emergency “investment vehicles of financial speculators with no track record of
achievement in oil producing or exploration.” Also regulatory documents
published in the USA, where ERHC is domiciled, described Offor’s company as
“little more than a paper company with no operations and just one favourable
contract in its portfolio.”
The
Odi Massacre
Odi, a town on the bank of the
famous River Nun, popularised in one of Gabriel Okara’s poems, has a population
of over 60,000. The inhabitants engage in fishing, farming, harvesting and
processing of oil palm produce and trading. And it is a host community for
Shell Petroleum Development Company, which controls three oil wells there.
Early in November, 1999, some youths abducted and killed 14 policemen.
Thereafter, Obasanjo issued a 14-day ultimatum to the government of Bayelsa
State to produce the killers or he, Obasanjo, would proclaim a state of
emergency.
Before the expiration of this
ultimatum, however, Obasanjo ordered troops into Odi and the surrounding
villages. The soldiers cordoned off the East-West Road by the Orashi River at
Mbiama and by the River Niger at Patani, after which they began a major
military operation with the use of heavy artillery, aircraft, grenade
launchers, mortar bombs and other sophisticated weapons.
According to the Civil Liberties
Organisation, a human rights non-governmental organisation, which visited the
area after, “So ruthless, savage and thorough was the operation that it could
only have been intended to achieve a genocidal outcome.” CLO added that two
weeks after the operation, the stench of decomposing bodies dumped into various
creeks could still be perceived one kilometre from the town. And every house in
the entire community, with the exception of the First Bank, a Community Health
Centre and the Anglican Church, were burnt down.
But the Obasanjo government
defended itself. The invasion, code-named Operation Hakuri II by the then
Minister of Defence, General T.Y. Danjuma, was “initiated with the mandate of
protecting lives and property–particularly oil platforms, flow stations,
operating rig terminals and pipelines refineries and power installation in the
Niger Delta.”
The
Zaki Biam Killings
Between Monday, 22 October and
Wednesday October 24, 2001, Obasanjo unleashed similar mayhem on Zaki Biam,
Vaase, Agbayin, Gbeji and Sankara in Benue State for the same reason–alleged
murder of some soldiers. Amnesty International said: “The government of Nigeria
must…condemn the killings publicly and make it clear that those responsible
will be held accountable.” But Obasanjo told the Financial Times, on 9 April
2002, that when you send in soldiers, “they do not go on a picnic”, adding that
“in human nature, reaction is always more than the action.”
Loans
for Obasanjo Farms Limited
Obasanjo’s transformation in this
area is spectacular. Since its establishment in 1978, Obasanjo’s farm was
surviving on shoe string but when he became President, the story changed. Chief
Femi Fani-Kayode, a former Special Assistant to the President on Public
Communications and one time Minister supervising the Ministry of Aviation,
revealed that the former president’s farm was chalking in an average of N30
million a month or N360 million per year.
When the former president and
Atiku were engaged in a political brawl, going for each other’s balls, the
Atiku Campaign Organisation raised the challenge that Obasanjo should tell
Nigerians how he could transform his farm, which was going under in 1999, to a
multi-billion naira business octopus in 2007.
The former Nigerian leader had
only N20,000 in his bank account before he was voted into power, according to
Malam Nasir el-Rufai, former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. But Obasanjo’s
spokesman, Uba Sani, said his principal raised a N2 billion loan for the farm.
However, Atiku’s foot soldiers
replied, asking Sani to tell that to the marines. They argued: “The explanation
of Uba Sani has only further exposed the duplicity of General Obasanjo.
General Obasanjo should tell
Nigerians how a farm, which was moribund in 1999 and had to be bailed out of
impending liquidation, became so rich to generate the collateral for a N2
billion loan.”
They maintained that one needs a
collateral of about N6 billion to raise a N2 billion loan. Obasanjo, in their
words, “should tell Nigerians how he transformed from a man, who his closest
minister said had less than N20, 000 in his account in 1999, to someone who now
has N6 billion collateral to take a N2 billion loan.”
Atiku’s people threw the poser:
“Nigerians will be glad to know if President Obasanjo solely took a N2 billion
loan from the N50 billion agriculture fund facilitated by the Federal
Government when there are millions of Nigerian farmers who should access the
loan, but have been crying for access since the introduction of the loan.
If President Obasanjo collected
N2 billion from a N50 billion agriculture fund approved by his government, does
this portend conflict of interest or corruption? These are the questions
President Obasanjo should answer to rescue his sagging integrity.”
Obasanjo as Land Grabber
Obasanjo laid foundation for this
when, as a military head of state, he promulgated the Land Use Decree in 1978,
vesting the ownership of land in the federal and state governments. Through
that, Obasanjo dispossessed the people of Akpa in Badagry, Lagos State, for the
building of Bells University. A protest by the villagers was crushed by the
former president’s soldiers. The same treatment awaited the people of Lekitaba
and Gembu towns on the Mambilla Plateau.
They were beaten up by policemen
when they stood up against what their enlightened sons called “the Savannah leg
of the expanding Obasanjo Farm.” The people of Ishasi-Akute in Ogun State and
Ayetoro Itele via Ayobo in Lagos State were also given the same dose of
medicine. The rest of the community went wild, almost creating another Agbekoya
that OBJ went soft, saying in Yoruba: Oto l’eto, oto le’to (legal and backdoor
processes are different).
People of Awela near Ayetoro also
lost 500 hectares of land to OBJ over 12 years ago. And in 2002, the former
president acquired 250 hectares at Ajoda for teak cultivation. The former
Nigerian leader turned the people of Abela, near Abeokuta, against their
leaders over land.
As this magazine reported in
2007, the people complained: “He didn’t buy the land from us properly. What he
did was to meet the heads of families who owned the land and give them some
paltry sums before he took over the land.”
Alhaji Yusuf told TheNEWS in
January 2005 that Obasanjo used his status to “give us what he likes; the
family members are fighting one another instead of the land grabber himself.”
Close to Iseyin, Oyo State, Jim Shina Farms offered a N250 million lease to
Obasanjo’s farm for 50 years. For good measure, he made it possible that an
abandoned Federal Government dam be resuscitated in order to turn this farm
into the Garden of Eden.
In Cross River state, the story
is not different. In 2001, Obasanjo acquired 10,000 hectares from the immediate
past Governor Donald Duke for oil palm estate. Also, the retired general
secured an additional 5,000 hectares at Kwa Plantation and took over the
government oil palm nursery in Ochong.
“When this thing started some few
years ago, Obasanjo was coming here regularly,” Goddy Akpama, National
Democratic Party, NDP, Publicity Secretary, once lamented to TheNEWS. He added:
“We all thought he was doing this anti-deforestation campaign. Later we heard
rumours that he was coming to take over the forest and all that.”
Obasanjo’s over 100 square
kilometres of land spread across nine communities in Akampa and Akpambuyi local
government areas of the state. At a point, youths from Abiati, Mfamosing,
Aningafe, Mbobui, Ndigane, Akonganaku and Akira Ikot, all in Akampa Local
Government Area, as well as Effanga Ikot and Oyom Eneyo, challenged the former
president, a development that led to the victimisation of Chief Daniel Asuquo,
the chairman of Akampa Council.
He lost his re-election and spent
18 months in detention on a spurious murder charge, which the court threw out
in 2004. Since 2000, this magazine gathered, Obasanjo’s oil palm mill on his
plantation, under the supervision of one Gilbert, a Malaysian, has been
producing 10 tonnes of palm oil per day.
Obasanjo poached a majority of
the mill workers from the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research, NIFOR,
Evborneka in Edo State. He accommodates them at Kwa Housing Estate, a former
property of Calabar Sports Club on Ekorenium Road.
In Rivers State, Obasanjo’s oil
palm land is located at Ehuagie in Ogbo/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area. His
two fish farms are at Ota Ahoada and Ogbo communities. He has other choice
parcels of land at Omuotude area. Analysts, however, are anxious whether President
Umar Yar’Adua’s plan to review the Land Use Act will affect the former Nigerian
leader.
Unethical
Agribusiness Practice
Before becoming president,
Obasanjo leased out his Abeokuta Owiwi Commercial Hatchery because it was
almost going under. An Israeli farm, Agrited, took over his farm at Oluyole
Local Government in Ibadan. From 1993 to 2004, Avian Specialities was in charge
of Obasanjo’s poultry at Alomaja in Ibadan.
But with a combination of greed,
laws designed to favour his farm at the expense of others and other underhand
tactics, Obasanjo gained a slow but steady monopoly that caught his competitors
panting like a beached whale.
It all started on Saturday 24
November 2004 when the management of Zartech Nigeria Limited, an agribusiness
company, unwittingly invited a goat to come and inspect its barn of cocoyam! In
other words, the company gave Obasanjo the honour to unveil its Tunnel
Ventilation houses, a new production system. As the ceremony was going on, the
former president’s mind was somewhere else.
Something was taking shape in his
head. He shunned the lunch with Maurice Zard, chairman of the company and
skittered to his Otta farm where he lambasted his own officials for allowing
the other company to outperform them.
Then Obasanjo started laying his
snare, first by persuading the Poultry Stakeholders Council, at a meeting, that
importation of grandparent stock, a better breed of chicken, be controlled. In
their communiqué, the following companies came up for licence: Zartech Nigeria
Limited, Avian Specialities, Tuns Farms, Oshogbo; Obasanjo Farms, Otta; Nirrya
Farms, Kaduna and S & D.
However, while the stakeholders
had their say, Obasanjo had his way. He jettisoned their list and came up with
four companies: Obasanjo Farms, S & D Farms, owned by his chum, Femi Coker;
CHI Farms, producers of Chivita and the National Animal Production Institute,
Shika, Zaria. The stakeholders did not have any stake in the new scheme!
Those who had the wherewithal
were not given the opportunity while weak ones had a field day. Zartech, the
biggest farm in Nigeria, with the capacity to slaughter 20,000 chickens per
day, was inexplicably denied the licence. The new arrangement was such that
weaker farms would supply big players with grand parent stock.
When the stakeholders complained
to the former Agriculture Minister, Alhaji Adamu Bello, he threw his hands up
in frustration. Not a company to give up easily, Zartech seized the opportunity
of the inability of the National Animal Production Research Institute, NAPRI, to
finance what was approved for it to import. Zartech expressed its readiness to
provide the money. But when Obasanjo got wind of this, his security goons
arrested Zartech’s Managing Director, Roger Adjaude and his brother, Tony, and
deported them to Lebanon, their country. Dr. A Oni, NAPRI boss was also
detained.
Obasanjo went further to make it
a crime for any foreign airline to freight the grandparent stocks to Nigeria
without approval from Aso Rock. They chickened out because they knew that the
former president was a mean and jealous chicken farmer. Obasanjo went a step
further to make sure the stocks were intercepted at the border.
With the coast clear, other
farms, since then, have been buying grandparent stocks from Obasanjo’s farm.
Obasanjo’s hatred for Zartech manifested when he tried to persuade the United
African Company, UAC, not to lease its farm in Maya, Oyo State to it. But UAC
stood its ground. Worse still, he accused Agrited of lowering prices, a
practice which Obasanjo himself was guilty of. For this, his soldiers drove
away the Israelis from the farm he leased to them.
Hurried
Terminal Contracts
On 16 May, 13 days to the end of
his tenure, Obasanjo announced to the Federal Executive Council, FEC, the award
of contracts worth N756 billion. That proposal sailed through the council like
a greased pig in a slaughter house. As Frank Nweke, then minister of
Information, explained, N70 billion of this would be for the resuscitation of
textile industries in Nigeria; N58.6 billion for the second Niger Bridge; its
maintenance was to gulp N42 billion. The companies to execute the projects were
not named. Three days earlier, FEC, approved N16.53 billion port harbours
reconstruction in Lagos; N20 billion, expansion of the Lagos airport; N4.8
billion, building of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, permanent
accommodation; and N1.39 billion for the Ministry of Defence’s permanent
residence for participants of War College Training Course in Abuja; N1.4
billion, conversion of steam and head for the power plants; N47.4 billion,
conversion of the Alaoji Power Plant to double circuit; N3.5 billion for
procurement and repair of two boilers at the Egbin Power Station in Lagos and
N233 million was for fixing the Agege-Lagos Road.
Professor Daniel Saror, former
Minority Leader of the Senate, told TheNEWS in 2007: “Obasanjo was dipping his
hand into the Federation Account to execute many projects, including the power
stations in the Niger Delta. Billions of dollars are being spent on those
projects without the approval of the relevant agencies. No senator can exercise
oversight function over them because nobody at the National Assembly knows
about the contracts and the companies handling them.
Senator Farouk Bello Bunza had
tried to draw the attention of the Senate to this anomaly, but the PDP senators
shot his motion down.”
If the above contracts were
rubber stamped by the FEC, it was not aware of when Malam Muhammad Habibu Aliyu,
then Minister of State for Water Transportation, awarded $140 million worth of
contracts for the protection of the Lagos coastline and N2.3 billion for a
river port in Lokoja.
The FEC neither revealed the
contractor nor how the money would be raised. Worse still, Obasanjo awarded a
N22 billion contract for the dualisation of the East/West Road without going
through competitive tender. Others were the Oron-Eket Road awarded for N26.6
billion; Eket-Onne section, N29.4 billion; Onne-Kaiama section, N86 billion,
Kaiama-Warri Road, N78 billion.
There were also the N30.3 billion
contract for the building of a dam at Karhia, a suburb of the Federal Capital
Territory; dualisation of Jikwoyi-Karshi Road, N7 billion; redevelopment of the
popular A.Y.A. area N1.5 billion; surveying and mapping of the FCT, N162.8
million; construction of Abuja Children Resort Library, N130 million;
construction of comprehensive health centres in the 774 local government areas
across the country, N55 billion. The Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, fund
for the development of the agricultural sector was to gulp N15 billion and
replacement of dilapidated infrastructure in the education sector, N600
billion.
He also committed N21.2 billion
for the development of the Middle Rima Valley Irrigation Project II in Sokoto;
rehabilitation of Sokoto-Talata Mafara-Gusau Road was reviewed upward to N4
billion; renovation of the Jigawa Polytechnic, N156 million; provision of
amenities in border communities around the Nigeria/Niger Republic in Katsina
State, N800 million.
Dr. Joseph Wayas, Second Republic
Senate President, was quoted by a medium: “It was wrong of Obasanjo to award
contracts at a stage when he should be preparing his handover notes. Why should
you sit for eight years only to start awarding contracts for somebody else to
supervise? What is your interest in those contracts? Who do Nigerians hold
accountable for the success or failure of those contracts?”
Although Frank Nweke, then
Minister of Information, argued they were in order, because government is a
continuum, analysts wondered that it was the same Obasanjo who, in 1999, set up
the Christopher Kolade Panel to probe all transactions of the General
Abudusalami Abubakar government.
Siemens
During a news conference last
year, acting U.S. Assistant Attorney-General, Matthew Friedrich, announced that
German company, Siemens AG, pleaded guilty to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
violations, one of which was bribery scandal against some Nigerian big shots.
President Umar Yar’Adua, penultimate Sunday, directed all relevant security
agencies to investigate it.
A statement, signed by the
President’s Special Adviser on Communications, Olusegun Adeniyi, read: “The
attention of President Umaru Yar’Adua has been drawn to media reports of the
alleged bribery by an international telecoms company (Siemens) of some past
Nigerian public officials and the President wishes to assure the nation that
anybody found culpable in the scandal would face the full wrath of the law.”
Although Lori Weinstein, the
dogged prosecutor, who pursued the case, did not reveal the names to Judge
Richard Leon, she said the documents contained clues for the court to figure
out who was who in the $4.5 million bribery scam over $130 million
telecommunications projects between 2000 and 2001. Yar’Adua’s investigation may
unravel who accepted $180,000 wristwatches.
Halliburton
Bribes
The Umar Yar’Adua government,
according to analysts, should probe Obasanjo and Atiku over the Halliburton
scam. It was the former Nigerian leader who started it all when he mentioned
his former VP in the scandal during the controversial BBC interview. Atiku’s
media aide, Garba Shehu, however, countered: “Obasanjo had said these and many
more while he was in office.
Yet, with all the law enforcement
agencies at his disposal, he failed to establish a single case against Atiku.
The scandal broke out after a French court investigated Kellog, Brown and Root,
KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, on an allegation that it paid $180m to FG
officials to win contracts for the construction of the $6 billion NLNG plant.
For this, Halliburton pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a fine of $579 million.
According to documents on the
website of the US Justice Department, Tri-Star, based in Gribraltar, and a
trading company of Tokyo were respectively paid $132 million and $50 million to
be passed to Nigerian officials. The EFCC, which once probed the $180m bribe
scandal, interrogated Edmund Daokuru, former Minister of State in the Petroleum
Ministry, and Funso Kupolokun, then the Group Managing Director, NNPC.
The scam started from the General
Sani Abacha years–Alhaji M.D. Yusuf and former oil minister, Dan Etete were
named–and continued under Abdulsalami. Under Obasanjo, Halliburton twice paid
kickbacks–in 2001, $51 million and in 2002, $37.5 million.
In its 29 March, edition, Next on
Sunday reported that after the “transition to civil rule in 1999, the United
States Department of Justice attorneys stated that (Albert Jackson Mr.Stanley,
Chief Executive of KBR) met with the new President, Olusegun Obasanjo and the
then Group Managing Director of NNPC, Gauis Obaseki, in Abuja on November 11,
2001, to designate ‘a representative with whom the joint venture… should negotiate
the (obligatory) bribes in support of the award of the (forthcoming) Trains 4
and 5 contracts.” Mr. Wojciech Chodan, an American but UK-based wheeler dealer
and Mr.Stanley, as the newspaper put it, met Obaseki over lunch, “to discuss
the details of the Trains 4 and 5 contracts.”
Violation
of Court Orders/Constitution
The one that readily comes to
mind was the way Obasanjo seized the funds of Lagos State councils, in spite of
the Supreme Court ruling. Jide Ayobolu, a public commentator, once lamented “a
situation where those that swore on oath to uphold the constitution, are
wantonly violating the constitution.”
Bells
University
As President, Obasanjo awarded
licence for himself to establish a private university, Bells. This is in spite
of what is contained in the statute books that a serving president should not
engage in any business except agriculture. Analysts argued that it was for this
reason that the former president victimised former Abia State governor, Orji
Kalu, whose Slok Airline had to relocate to Gambia.
Though supporters of Obasanjo
claimed that he ran his companies through blind trusts, but watchers of the
government are of the view that he used his influence to the advantage of such
ventures.
Oil
Deals
As petroleum minister, Obasanjo
did not account for oil sales. For this reason and more, Femi Falana, the human
rights lawyer, dragged the former president to a Federal High Court, Abuja.
Falana charged that between 2000 and 2006, Nigeria lost over $13 billion
unaccounted revenue. “A thorough investigation will crack the secrecy and
reveal the wanton billions of dollars that had vanished from the sales book,”
Falana maintained.
He also wants the court to
question OBJ on how he spent over $1billion between 1999 and 2006 for the
rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries, all of which are not
working. “On this score, we have since confirmed that more than $700million was
misappropriated to enrich Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and his cronies and to fund
his political party, the People Democratic Party, PDP,” Falana alleged, adding
that in the end Obasanjo sold off the refineries as scraps.
A can of worms was opened by
Hamman Tukur, Chairman Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission
(RMAFC) when he called President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua in August 2007.
According to Mathias Okoi-Uyouyo,
in his book, EFCC and the New Imperialism, A study of Corruption in the
Obasanjo Years, “Tukur who almost bit the dust in the dying days of the
Obasanjo administration (due to his campaigns for probity in governance), told
Yar’Adua that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) had withheld a
total sum of N560 billion from the Federation Account from December 2004 to
April 2007.”
Tukur, as the writer puts it,
revealed that NNPC lifts 445,000 barrels of crude oil every day for domestic
refining but it sells most of these to refineries outside the country,
especially because our refineries are not operating at full capacity.
The NNPC pays for refining and
collects all the refined products but Nigeria and collects all the refined
products but Nigerians only see kerosene, PMS and diesel. “Revenue from the
sale of the other LFPO should be enough to recover costs and save Nigerians
from price increase. (However,) the NNPC does not account for the other products
but it also withholds about N20billion every month from the Federation Account
as subsidy.”
The critic maintained further
that there is also the need to question the rationale of the NNPC being
supplied 450,000 barrels of crude oil a day when the refineries when
functioning at full capacity can only refine 300,000 barrels a day. The
refining capacity of the refineries during the period under review has further
plunged to 150,000 barrels per day from 250,000 barrels per day in 1999, yet
450,000 barrels were daily supplied to it.
In his calculation, Okoi-Uyouyo
said that in 2001, when the local allocation was increased, crude oil was
selling at N35per barrel in the international market. “The price NNPC was
paying is $18 per barrel for an excess 300,000 barrels it could not refine. A
profit of $5,100,000 was earned daily from this transaction. The crude oil was
paid for in naira by the NNPC.
The organisation paid the Central
Bank of Nigeria at N110 to a dollar, when the existing rate of the dollar in
the foreign exchange market was N135 to a dollar.” The book further tells
Nigerians that revelation by NEITI on an audit carried on its behalf by the
United Kingdom-based audit firm, Hart Group, showed that about 65million
barrels of crude oil sold between 1999 and 2004 could not be accounted for.”
Privatisation of State-Owned
Enterprises
According to a survey contained
in Mathias Okoi-Uyonyo’s book, EFCC and the New Imperialism, the Privatisation
programme under Obasanjo was implemented in a “manner that handed over these
public assets at ridiculously low prices to people alleged to be his business
associates or that of his family members. Typical examples were his Nigerian
Telecommunications and Ajaokuta Steel Complex.” On NITEL, Falana has an axe to
grind with OBJ.
The Investors International
Limited, ILL, of London is, as the lawyer explained, owned by Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo’s cronies and was “induced into buying up NITEL”. First Bank,
therefore, as the lawyer said, lent $100million to ILL, which the company paid
as part of the required 10 per cent deposit to Bureau of Public Enterprises,
BPE, in lieu of NITEL shares. Questions were raised on the loan because it
breached the Bank and Other Financial Institution Act, BOFIA, 1991, which
states that no bank can give a loan to a single client in excess of 35 per cent
of the value of its shareholders’ fund.
But Obasanjo, as Falana alleged,
withdrew $100 million from the Federation Account without appropriation by the
National Assembly to offset NITEL’s indebtedness to the bank, just before the
auction took place. Obasanjo also has questions to answer on the Aluminum
Smelter Company of Nigeria, ALSCON, Ajaokuta Steel Company, Hilton Hotel, NICON
Insurance plc, Federal Government houses and others.
For Obasanjo, therefore, to say
to the international community that he is clean, analysts conclude, he was
playing the ostrich. To them, his backside is exposed to the wind, desert wind!
Culled
from: Executive Watchdog Source: The News Magazine
