The Attorney General of the federation, Bello Adoke, has absolved all the former presidents fingered in the infamous Halliburton scandal of any involvement in the $180 million bribe scam.

Mr. Adoke said that none of the former heads of state, including Olusegun Obasanjo, profited from the bribes which spanned three administrations. He however admitted that the president’s aides were culpable in the scandal.

The justice minister said this on Monday when defending his ministry’s budget in front of the senate sub-committee on judiciary, human rights and legal matters headed by Dahiru Umaru.

The minister said that the major culprits in the scam were Bodunde Adeyanju, a former aide to President Obasanjo, and Ibrahim Aliyu, who was a former aide to President Abdulsalam Abubakar. Mr. Adoke’s predecessor, Michael Aondoakaa, had repeatedly come under fire for his kid gloves approach to the case. Mr. Adoke’s verbal acquittal of the ex-heads of state comes after a similar reprieve to the construction giant, Julius Berger in October last year.

NEXT revealed that $120 million in bribes was paid during Mr. Obasanjo’s administration alone between 1999 and 2005. Yet, during the interrogation yesterday, Mr. Adoke said the former president knew nothing of it.

“The aide (Bodunde) never mentioned Obasanjo’s name,” Mr. Adoke said.

“The aide said he collected it (the bribe) and he admitted that it was not for the President. He emphatically said that President (Obasanjo) never knew about it. He answered his father’s name.”

Continuous bribe

Mr. Adoke also argued that the scam predates the Obasanjo regime and started during the regime of the late dictator, Sani Abacha.

“The Halliburton scandal is beyond the regime of President Obasanjo, it started from the time of Abacha, even officials of the government of General Ibrahim Abacha had collected money, the officials of the government of General Abdulsalam have collected money; it was a continuous process,” the minister said.

He added that his findings revealed that while the bribery scam lasted, only officials of the government, especially aides to the president, benefited and “never” the presidents.

Ikechukwu Obiora (PDP Anambra), chairman, Ad-hoc committee on sale of Federal Government houses, was however not satisfied with the minister’s defence of the past presidents.

He argued that since the special assistant to President Obasanjo was paid money in order to influence the award of contracts, there is an implication that the money was intended for the former president.

“We have to do an intensive public hearing on this,” Mr. Obiora said.

The minister, however, admitted that former President Obasanjo had, during his administration, made overtures to Jeffery Tesler, the indicted London lawyer who gave out the bribes. He said Mr Obasanjo sought to recover 50 per cent of the total amount but he could not say why this never happened.

“I do not know why the money was not repatriated,” he said.

He argued that only $21 million of the $180 million bribery sum paid to Mr. Tesler was given to Nigerian officials during the period while the lawyer kept the balance as profits of the fraud.

Recovery account

The justice minister said that the various amounts earned by the government as a result of the settlement with the companies involved in the bribe are currently held in a Recovery Account controlled by the office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

“Penal funds are not treated as revenue, the money does not go into the federation account but goes into what we call the recovery account for the exclusive use of the federal government,” Mr. Adoke added.

He also said that $1.4 billion of Abacha’s loot is still stashed in foreign banks while only $1 billion of the loot has been repatriated into the recovery account.

The Cover-up

Contrary to what Mr. Adoke said, and as reported by NEXT in previous editions, documents from the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States indicated the involvement of three former successive Heads of State: late Abacha, Mr Abubakar, and Mr Obasanjo.

The three benefitted from the bribe scheme which spanned over ten years, beginning from 1994, and involving several of their aides. The bribes were meant to secure liquefied natural gas contracts from the federal government; with the total value of the contracts being $6 billion while the bribe money was $180 million. The contracts were given in four stages; trains 1 and 2; train 3; trains 4 and 5; and train 6.

Mr. Adoke did not give any basis for the exoneration of the former Heads of State.

I bet these folks must think everyone is daft!. . . . and well, they probably aren't far from being right in their thoughts, after all Nigerians are the same people clamoring for the same government to come back in April

That Adoke dude is way worse than Aondokaa, bunch of twerps!

Sometimes I wonder why God made me a Nigerian . . . this is one of those rare moments! 

Kobojunkie:

Sometimes I wonder why God made me a Nigerian . . . this is one of those rare moments! 

lmao! deal with it!

Kobojunkie:

Sometimes I wonder why God made me a Nigerian . . . this is one of those rare moments! 

The minister of Justice is empowered to absolve anyone of any allegation. You can't always just deem someone as guilty by mere hearsays

Are you even serious? What in the world are you saying is HEAR SAY of this?