[size=18pt]5th June 1996 – ITN News
NIGERIANS PROTESTS AT SHOOTING DEAD OF ABIOLA’S WIFE, KUDIRAT. (VIDEO CLIP)[/size]

http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1996/06/05/BSP050696009/?s=nigeria+azikiwe&st=2&pn=77&sortBy=date

Demonstrations have been staged in Nigeria over the shooting of the wife of leading political dissident Mashood Abiola, Kudirat Abiola.

[size=18pt]Now consider the story below:[/size]


[size=18pt]Flashback: How Buba Marwa "helped" Abacha launder public funds that birthed his Albar [/size]


Source: SaharaReporters.com

***Note: This was first published by SaharaReporters.Com, the unofficial mouthpiece of Ribadu on Wednesday, 28 November 2007 17:58 Sahara Reporters

Information available to Saharareporters has revealed how Col.MB Marwa, former military administrator of Lagos state and proprietor of the defunct Albarka Airlines helped late General Abacha to launder funds stolen from Nigeria abroad. Col. Mohammed B. Marwa is currently being screened by Nigeria's senate to become a Nigerian ambassador to a yet-to-be named country. According to documents obtained by Saharareporters, Marwa's case stated when Mr Enrico Monfrini a Switzerland-based counsel representing Nigeria contacted the Federal government about Mutual Legal Assistance request from Jersey authorities in respect of an account with CIBC (Cayman Island ) Ltd, beneficially owned by Col. Mohammed Buba Marwa (rtd)

Before then, Jersey authorities have been investigating the corrupt payments totaling more than $110 million made by one Mr. Raj. Arjandras BHOJWANI and his company, Tata Sales and Services SA (TOSS) to General Abacha, in exchange for the granting of inflated contracts for the supply of vehicles to the Federal Government of Nigeria in the sum of $149 million (contract dated 19 April, 1996) and $29 million (contract dated 12 August 1997); the context of which the Jersey authorities suspected that part of the corrupt proceeds had been laundered was based on documents they received from Cayman Islands.

Jersey authorities also in the letter referred, requested for an urgent need to receive witness statement from Col.Buba Marwa regarding the payment of the second contract by the Central Bank of Nigeria to TOSS; three payments totaling $12,228,750 between October and November 1997 to the account of Ocean Queen Universal Corp with CIBC SA, Geneva , which was opened on 2nd October, 1997 by Mr.Gabriel Katri, who had designated Col. Mohammed Buba Marwa as its beneficial owner; a transfer of $12,481,500 ordered by Mr. Katri to the account of Ashar Ltd. with Trans- National Bank, Nairobi, a bank believed to be owned by Daniel Arap Moi�s family which was heavily used by Mr. Katri to launder the funds of the Abachas and another account A4725 said to have been opened by Mr. Katri on 9th March 1998 with CIBC Bank and Trust Company (Cayman) Ltd in the name of Tiger Investments Ltd. without a beneficial owner on any of its documents.

However the document transmitted by the bank showed that Col. Marwa was granted signatory power on the account;the four additional Transfer totaling $2,319,901 credited in the account A4725 of Tiger Investments Ltd. from Trans-National Bank; the transfer totaling $7.9Million ordered by Mr. Katri between December 1999 and May 2000 to an account in the name of Insured Escrow Service with Bank First, Oklahoma City reference �Albarka Airlines - Alhaji Muhammed Buba�; a total of $1Million paid to the Ocean Queen account between November 1999 and May 2001 and to be latter transferred to accounts related to Mr. Katri (notably accounts in the name of Mr. Lex LIN, a Chinese living in Nigeria);payment of $400,000 made to Whitewhale Investments and Ethel Finance Inc., companies managed by Mr. Katri;payment of a total $1,500,000:00 paid to various accounts in Taiwan Which appear to be related with each other and may be a money laundering scheme; an additional account �301260 LEOPARD� which Col. Marwa opened under the name � Mohammed Buba� with Private Investment Bank Ltd. Nassau, Bahamas; the two transfers of $693, 457 and $353, 865 received in the Leopard account on 15th June, 2001, 19th June 2001 respectively, among others.

Saharareporters gathered that sometimes in 1996 the Federal Government of Nigeria purchased Tata trucks from an Indian Company, TATA Overseas Sales and Services (TOSS) S.A, via a contract worth approximatelly $149 million in which Buba Marwa acted as a representative of the Nigerian Government to supply of 1,500 Tata trucks for the Nigerian Armed Forces and the Police in furtherance of which the contractors were paid the contract sum with a 100% Bank Guarantee waiver for the advance fee while Marwa was the Defence Attach� in the Nigerian Mission to the United Nations in New York.

Interestingly, TATA Overseas Sales and Service contractors only supplied 751 trucks to the Office of the then Chief of Defence Staff out of which the Police benefited about 285 of the total trucks supplied.

But the juicy end of the contract would only encourage Abacha in 1997 to grant another contract to TOSS to supply the same type of trucks to the National Electoral Commission of Nigeria at a sum of $29 million which was facilitated by Col. Yakubu Bako, who was then the Chief of Logistics of the electoral body on behalf of the Federal Government.

Saharareporters found out that in the course of payments of this second contract that Col. MB Marwa opened an account, Ocean Queen Universal Corporation with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (Suisse) S.A, Geneva (CIBC) into which three (3) remittances totalling $12,228,750 meant for the contractors were paid between October and November 1997 and the money was further laundered in to another account, Ashar Ltd with Account number 04-400-984 at Trans National Bank Nairobi, Kenya allegedly at the instance of Gen. Sani Abacha.


A further sum of $12, 356,670:00 was transferred from the Nairobi account to an account, TIGER INVESTMENTS LTD No.A4725 at CIBC Bank and Trust Company (Cayman) Ltd. believed to have been opened in March 1998 by Marwa's money laundering associate, Gabriel Katri, who was given Power of Attorney to control the Ocean Queen Account at CIBC, Geneva by Marwa.

Saharareporters findings shows that TIGER INVESTMENTS entered into a purported loan agreement between November 1999 and June 2000 worth $8,950,000 with ALBARKA AIRLINES, an airline company fully owned and initiated by Marwa which led to various transfers totalling $7.9 million into an account-INSURED ESCROW SERVICE- with Bank First, Oklahoma City, in favour of Albarka Airlines - Alhaji Mohammed Buba Marwa.

Marwa also instructed his agent to open another account, LEOPARD at Private Investment Bank Ltd, Nassau, Bahamas into which two transfers of $693,457:00 dated 15th June 2001 and $353,865:00 dated 19th June were made. The funds were applied for the expenses of the Albarka Airlines on the instruction of the former Lagos state administrator, who opened the account with a Nigerian issued Diplomatic Passport No. 0300646 issued in Abuja on 23rd September, 1993.

Apart from this, Saharareporters also established through available documents that apart from the proceeds of the Tata contract, Gen. Marwa also helped the Abachas to launder the sum $17 million for Gen. Abacha from the accounts of the Nigerian United Nation Mission to Trans National Bank, Nairobi, Kenya in 1996.

It was gathered that MB Marwa confessed to the crime of direct stealing and money laundering of same soon after he was arrested detained and interrogated by the EFCC, via a letter he wrote to Obasanjo dated 18th August, 2006 captioned �LETTER OF PROFOUND APOLOGY AND REMORSE� a copy of which was obtained exclusively by Saharareporters Marwa tried to paint himself as a victim of a firm military command structure.

In the letter, Alhaji Marwa apologized to Obasanjo, pledging his allegaince to the former president and insisting that he was commanded by the former head of state to carry out the acts of money laundering and direct stealing under duress pleading that he could not have disobeyed the late dictator because he never thought the transfers were illegitimate.

However, reports written by the security agencies on the case shows that Col. Buba Marwa conspired with the then Head of State Gen. Abacha to steal and launder public funds for their personal gains. An EFCC report cited by Saharareporters said that Marwa's defence of obeying orders from a superior military officer cannot hold water as he should not and cannot obey unlawful orders.The report said that the transfer of $17 million by the suspect from the account of Nigerian UN mission in New York to Abacha�s private account in Kenya which has no connection with any contract whatsoever could not have been done ignorantly.


"He must have known too well that the money went to Abacha�s private account for his personal benefits. It became more glaring and incriminating since Buba Marwa himself has benefited from the proceeds of this crime. This is because the accounts from where some of the laundered proceed rested in the Cayman Island turned out to be what was used to finance the establishment of Albarka Airlines under a shabby loan arrangement which no repayment has been made to date." the EFCC reports concluded.

Saharareporters was further informed that Mr Raj Arjandras BHOJWANI is currently being prosecuted by the Jersey authorities for money laundering in relation to the Tata contract and the various funds channelled through his account by Alhaji Marwa.
Raj Arjandas Bhojwani, a native of India, was charged in Jersey with the laundering of US$43.9 million [about �22.5 million] after he was arrested in London on 8 February 2007 and taken to Jersey the next day. He appeared in the Royal Court, Jersey and reserved his plea to three charges relating to the laundering of the money, which is alleged to be the proceeds of government corruption in Nigeria relating to Marwa. The money laundering case against Bhojwani is alleged to have taken place in October 2000.

Ironically While Bhojwani faced possible jail time in Jersey, Alhaji Marwa was recently nominated to become Nigeria's ambassador to a yet -to-be-named country, his confirmation by the Nigerian senate is almost complete and recently he bragged in the media that his airline-AlBarka Airlines-will soon resume operations.

[size=18pt]This is how BBC reported the same case:

Man in money launder scam with dictator to repay £26.5m[/size]

A man who laundered money in a business deal with ex-Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha has been ordered to repay £26.5m by Jersey's Royal Court.

Raj Arjandas Bhojwani, from India, laundered £28m through the Jersey branch of the Bank of India.

He was jailed in 2010 for eight years, but in February this was cut to six years for Bhojwani's good character.

The money was laundered in a business deal with the late Nigerian military dictator, who died in 1998.

The Royal Court ordered the confiscation of £26.5m and for Bhojwani to contribute to the prosecution costs.
'Clear message'

A statement released by the Royal Court said it represented the end of a long investigation into serious money laundering in Jersey.

HM Attorney General Timothy Le Cocq, QC, said: "This is not the first time the attorney general has brought a successful prosecution for money laundering and we hope that it will send out a clear message that Jersey will deal very seriously with such offences."

The case began following an investigation into the activities of General Abacha.

$170m connected with the Abacha investigation has already been returned to Nigeria from Jersey and it is expected some of the confiscated money from Bhojwani will also be returned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=Raj%20BHOJWANI

If you see the BBC story they reported that President Abacha was involved in laundering money with the accused.

When you look into the case more closely you would quickly realise that Abacha was not involved at all as in the report from sahara reporters, the person allegedly involved was Buba Marwa, who was a member of Abacha's government.

Does it then automatically mean that Abacha was involved?


hmmmmmm.

In this particular case it would appear that the only thing that links  Abacha to the case, was a letter of apology that Buba Marwa wrote to Obasanjo saying that he was guilty of money laundering and that he had done it because Abacha ordered him to.

This letter was all Obj needed to give the foreign courts, for BBC to write the story they wrote?

Well we know who briefed the BBC on the story they wrote don't we? The Obasanjo government.

Wow!

Like in the earlier case of Abubakar Bagudu, Marwa was also a full member of the PDP establishment who after he cooperated  with giving Obasanjo what he needed to blame Abacha, was later rewarded by being made the Ambassador to South Africa.

EFCC never brought any court case against Marwa.

The BBC story (which they got from Obasanjo) says that money was laundered by buying trucks at inflated prices.
$149m was spent on 1,500 trucks;

That works out at approx $100,000 per truck, which does not appeared to be an inflated price.

So what is the justification for Obasanjo to brief the press that trucks purchased by Abacha' government at less than $100,000 each , are being sold at over-inflated prices

[size=18pt]Gen Abacha In The Eyes Of Late Prof Sam Aluko[/size]

Thu, 04/08/2011 - 12:37am | UMARU MOHAMMED Opinion Comment & Opinion

http://www.leadership.ng/nga/columns/3196/2011/08/04/gen_abacha_eyes_prof_aluko.html



In a recent interview with a national daily, Professor Sam Aluko, the chairman of the National Economic Intelligence Committee under the late General Sani Abacha, said he had no regrets serving the administration of the demised military ruler. According to him, General Abacha deserves more credit to his memory than his hate-laden critics would have the humility and courage to admit. The erudite scholar argued that the late Abacha had a clear vision of leading Nigeria to progress and prosperity.

In particular, he noted that General Abacha was never a know-all dictator that could dominate discussions at a cabinet session and that, once he was convinced that an idea was in the interest of Nigeria, he wouldn’t hesitate to endorse it.
Professor Aluko recalled Abacha’s patriotic commitment to encourage the local production of bitumen on exportable scale and that he set Nigeria on the path of achieving the objective. According to him, Abacha never hesitated to release the funds for the purpose to avoid the needless costs of importing what Nigeria could abundantly produce locally.

The professor of Economics also explained how the Abacha administration was able to stabilise the value of the naira and contain inflation. As far as most objective and fair-minded Nigerians are concerned, the professor was preaching to the converted. It is on record that the Obasanjo administration raised fuel price per litre to 75 naira while, throughout his tenure, the late General Abacha maintained it at 25 naira per litre. In fact, General Obasanjo was so determined to kill Nigerians with “love” that he introduced excruciating economic reforms, including the decision to increase value added tax (VAT), which left ordinary Nigerians with the albatross of indirect taxes through hard-hitting inflationary spiral. Ironically, while the former Obasanjo administration was busy increasing value added tax, it was at the same time granting reckless import waivers to his cronies in the private sector. Worse still, his so-called economic reforms strangulated small and medium scale businesses and industries.

According to the Nigerian Manufacturing Association (MAN), about 430 industries had to fold up as a consequence of decaying national infrastructure and the hostile operating environment created by Obasanjo’s economic reforms. Nigerians cannot also forget in a hurry how NITEL was cruelly killed in the name of privatisation, leaving Nigerians at the mercy of the new GSM telecom operators.

The Obasanjo administration threw the ordinary Nigerians to the sharks while at the same time enriching his cronies under the cover of reforming the economy.

Despite these so-called reforms, which were insincerely implemented, are the majority of Nigerians better off or worse off as a result of Obasanjo’s economic “magic”? Obasanjo promised to increase power generation to 10,000 megawatts by 2007 and as from the time he left office and today, Nigeria is still hovering between 2,500 and 3,000 megawatts of electricity generation. While Obasanjo was frequently quoting the economic success story of the former Singaporean prime minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, his insincerity didn’t let him achieve the same results in Nigeria.

Despite the alleged corruption of the Abacha administration, Nigerians could still see the concrete evidence of where the proceeds of subsidy withdrawal were being beneficially invested. Who could deny that we had remarkable changes in the conditions of public roads, hospitals, water supply systems and other critical areas of social service? The scrapped Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) was able to achieve results within a relatively short space of time, thanks to the sincerity of the Abacha administration to apply subsidy withdrawal proceeds to the practical improvement of the quality of life of Nigerians.

Do we need a reminder from professor Aluko to acknowledge that Abacha’s record was by far brighter than his enemies want the world to believe? The best public relations is good performance. Despite the $18 billion debt relief granted Nigeria in 2003 and a foreign reserve level of $63 billion did Nigerians count their blessings as a result of this extraordinary good luck? In fact, despite the vilification of Abacha’s memory by Obasanjo’s fans, the facts of the military ruler’s achievements cannot be easily obliterated even with the dynamite of hate and prejudice!

When he criticised the performance of the Obasanjo administration, the former president openly described professor Sam Aluko as “senile”. But then did Aluko’s alleged senility change the reality of Obasanjo’s record of unimpressive performance? At one point, the former president publicly admitted that he was ashamed of the conditions of federal roads, despite the billions allocated to that sector. Wasn’t Obasanjo’s mischief responsible for halting the progress of Nigeria’s railway rehabilitation and modernisation projects, which were started by Abacha? He deliberately frustrated the projects to spite Abacha. He forgot, however, that you should not undermine the wider public interest for the sake of private vengeance against a leader because you don’t want to associate him with anything good.

Thanks to Obasanjo’s pettiness, these projects could have covered a lot more ground today. Should any wise leader destroy good policies and projects merely because he hates the man who initiated them? Unfortunately, that was exactly the case under Obasanjo. Whether Professor Aluko said it or not, the memory of Abacha’s performance cannot be dismissed. Memories of good performance are stubborn and every leader will have to face the verdict of history. And in Obasanjo’s case, the verdict is coming faster than he imagined because insincerity is his middle name.

Umar sent in this piece from Federal Housing Estate, Gwiwa, Sokoto

I <3 abacha

IBB devalue Naira by over 2000% ! from 1N= $1.14 to N22= $1

IBB increased inflation from 3% to 54%

IBB looted tens of billions of dollars $ at least and estimated $20billion, although is could be several multiples of this amount.

So we can assume he is a very big liar and very dishonest man.

up abacha, up ibb, up buhari.

Up idi amin.

Up all african dictators, past and present

I salute you.

^
Are u ok?

Babangida, aka IBB devalue Naira by over 2000% ! Angry from 1N= $1.14 to N22= $1

IBB increased inflation from 3% to 54% Angry

IBB looted tens of billions of dollars $ at least and estimated $20billion, although is could be several multiples of this amount.

It is now widely believed that IBB was behind Abacha assassination by poisoning.

It is also widely believed that IBB was intrumental in immediate release of Obasanjo and bank rolling his election campaign for president in 1999.

So we can assume IBB is a very evil, criminal and very dishonest man whose word should never be trusted.

Right?

Obasanjo ruled Nigeria for almost 12 years.

Nigerians all know him to be very vengeful

He took corruption to a level never seen before in Nigeria.

As a military head of state he started "Operation feed the Nation" and used it to acquire he enormous Ota Farm.

He sold of all our assets from refineries, national buildings, telecoms and bought them himself for nothing.

He is known to be the biggest looter in Africa, to the extent that he could not even manage to deliver on accounting for the $16bn he had voluntarily informed us that he had budgetted to provide us with electricity power.

He also lied that would fight corruption, whilst at the same time spreading corruption everywhere.
EFCC he created was used by him vengefully to arrest anybody that opposed him.

He made himself Petroleum minister and had direct control of Nigeria's revenue from Oil sales at a time of record high oil prices upto $100 / barrel (Abacha ruled when oil sold at only $9/barrel).

Obasanjo has never allowed his government of 1999-2007 to be audited.

Despite the huge revenue he was getting from highest oil prices in history, he still raised fuel prices by 500% claiming he was removing subsidy ( this was a lie as government never subsidised fuel).

So we can all agree that Obasanjo is very criminal, dishonest and vengeful and a big liar.

Obasanjo ruled Nigeria for almost 12 years.

Nigerians all know him to be very vengeful

He took corruption to a level never seen before in Nigeria.

As a military head of state he started "Operation feed the Nation" and used it to acquire he enormous Ota Farm.

He sold of all our assets from refineries, national buildings, telecoms and bought them himself for nothing.

He is known to be the biggest looter in Africa, to the extent that he could not even manage to deliver on accounting for the $16bn he had voluntarily informed us that he had budgetted to provide us with electricity power.

He also lied that would fight corruption, whilst at the same time spreading corruption everywhere.
EFCC he created was used by him vengefully to arrest anybody that opposed him.

He made himself Petroleum minister and had direct control of Nigeria's revenue from Oil sales at a time of record high oil prices upto $100 / barrel  (Abacha ruled when oil sold at only $9/barrel).

Obasanjo has never allowed his government of 1999-2007 to be audited.

Despite the huge revenue he was getting from highest oil prices in history, he still raised fuel prices by 500% claiming he was removing subsidy ( this was a lie as government never subsidised fuel).

He devalued the Naira by 500% and impoverished Nigerians.

Comitted genocide in Benue state and in the Niger Delata wiping out whole villages.

Mismanaged and closed down Nigeria Airways, the nations proud national Airlines.

So we can all agree that Obasanjo is very criminal, dishonest and vengeful and a big liar.

Obasanjo , the corrupt, looting and vengeful criminal liar
and
Babangida, the corrupt looting and evil criminal liar

Conspired to ruin Abacha's reputation, whose government's performance was good, and Nigerians believe those liars?

We are in big problems when we cannot even identify our enemies

The World Bank estimate that $500 billion has been embezzeled by Nigerian leaders since independence.

Another report say that most of Oil revenue earned by Nigeria since independence was earned after 1999.

Now if $500 billion was embezzled?

Since Abacha has been probed, we know he did not embezzle anything .

So majority of the $500billion would be down to IBB and Obasanjo right?

Wow!!

@OP:Mallam Dogo make we hear word abeg u're not a saint too after all.

When ℓ̊ first saw this thread, ℓ̊ didn't bother to open it because ℓ̊ guessed OP will be corrected and he'll refrain but here we aя̩̥̊ε̲̣̣̣̥. Its really amazing Τ̲̅ђε̲̣̣̣̥ stuff some people aя̩̥̊ε̲̣̣̣̥ made of.

Re: Abacha deserves an apology -he never looted, Obj and IBB maliciously accused him

- the topic.
,

Bros, you are still on this!

yep!

juman:



Bros, you are still on this!