President Goodluck Jonathan’s choice
for reelection campaign director, Bello Haliru Mohammed, a former
minister and once an acting head of the
ruling Peoples Democratic Party, is a
confirmed bribe taker, indicted by a
German court in 2007, PREMIUM TIMES
can report today. Mr. Mohammed, named Thursday to
oversee Mr. Jonathan’s declaration and
campaign for re-election, in a
potentially tense political battle likely
to pitch him against either former head
of state, Muhammadu Buhari, or former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Messrs. Buhari and Atiku are vying for
the presidential ticket of the opposition
All Progressives Congress, APC. Haliru Mohammed Bello The presidency has said Mr. Jonathan
will pick his nomination form shortly
and will formally declare a long-
expected candidacy for the 2015
election, at a grand event early
November. That event will be overseen by an
expansive Presidential Declaration
Committee led by Mr. Mohammed,
supported by a former senate
president, Ken Nnamani, the Secretary
to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius, and the president’s political
adviser, Rufa’i Alkali. Dozens of others drawn from the PDP,
the National Assembly, the Executive
Council of the Federation, and the PDP
Governors’ Forum, are also members of
the team. But Mr. Mohammed’s appointment has
revived a mind-boggling bribery case
for which he and other senior officials
of the Olusegun Obasanjo
administration were indicted of by a
German court in 2007. In its October 4, 2007 ruling against
Siemen AG, the Munich State Court
named Mr. Mohammed as one of the
recipients of 77 hefty bribes paid by
Siemen officials in three countries-
Nigeria, Russia and Libya. The indictment, published in November
2007 by the United States-based Wall
Street Journal, listed Mr. Mohammed,
who at the time was the Minister for
Communications as having received
millions of Euros in bribes, alongside other Nigerian cabinet members, to
allow the German Conglomerate a piece
of the Nigerian telecoms market. In all, the company paid more than 10
million euros to Mr. Mohammed, former
telecommunications ministers,
Tajudeen Olarewaju, Cornelius Adebayo
and Haruna Elewi, as well as an
unnamed Senator, an unnamed immigration officer, and the PDP, the
court said.
Bello Haliru and President jonathan Mr. Mohammed was appointed Nigerian
minister of Communications in June
2001 by President Olusegun Obasanjo,
replacing Mohammed Arzika. He was appointed at a time the
government was planning to privatise
moribund state company, Nigerian
Telecommunications Limited, NITEL. The
court said as minister, Mr. Mohammed
received 550,000 euros in kickback in July 2002 and another 150,000 euros in
August 2003. The court said Nigerian ministers under
the Obasanjo government also received
unspecified sums of money for the
ruling PDP. “According to the Munich court ruling,
Edward Seidel, who headed Siemens’
operations in Nigeria earlier this
decade, helped deliver many of the
bribes to the final recipients,” the Wall
Street Journal reported at the time. “In August (2003), according to the
(Munich) court, Mr Siekaczek and Mr
Siedel funnelled a 150,000 euros bribe
to Mr. (Bello) Mohammed, following a
550,000 euros payment the year before
when he was still the Nigerian telecommunications minister,” the
paper reported. “The Munich court estimated that the
roughly 12million euros bribes in
Nigeria, Russia and Libya produced at
least 200 million euros in ‘unlawful
economic advantages’ for Siemens,”
according to the paper. Reinhard Siekaczek, a top Siemens
Manager, also coordinated the large
scale illicit payment, the Munich court
said. Siemens, at the time, accepted
responsibility for the misconduct of Mr.
Siekaczek and agreed to pay 210
million euros in fines to the German
government. While Mr. Siekaczek was indicted,
German prosecutors said they would
not pursue action against non-German
citizens who were identified as
recipients of the bribes, leaving them to
be sanctioned by their own governments. But for more than seven years, Mr.
Mohammed, and other recipients of the
bribes, have escaped justice with two
investigations by the Nigerian
authorities yielding no indictments. The former minister has instead been
rewarded with choice appointments,
serving as acting chairman of the ruling
party, PDP and later as Nigeria’s
defence minister. The Independent Corrupt Practices and
Other Related Offences Commission,
ICPC, launched an investigation
following the ruling of the German
court, but punished no one despite
former President Umaru Yar’adua famously vowing that “… there will
neither be sacred cows nor a cover up
for anybody found culpable of
breaching the law”. Separately, the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC, investigated
the scandal but failed to prosecute the
main culprits amid claims the former
minister admitted receiving the
payments. Mr. Mohammed was later elected the deputy chairman of PDP,
before being appointed the defence
minister by President Goodluck
Jonathan between 2011 and 2012. On the website of PDP, no mention is
made of the bribery scandal in Mr.
Mohammed’s profile. The party merely narrates its former
chairman’s career dating before and
after he joined the Nigerian Customs
Service, where he rose to the rank of
Comptroller General and retired in
1995. After his retirement from service, he
was appointed Commissioner, Revenue
Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal
Commission in 1999 from where he
became minister. He later became National Vice Chairman
of the PDP, North West Zone. In March
2008, he became Deputy National
Chairman of the Party and Acting
National Chairman in 2010. It is unclear whether Mr. Jonathan is
aware of corruption allegation against
Mr. Mohammed. But the President is not
known for any vigorous war against
corruption. He famously recently said
reports of corruption in Nigeria were exaggerated. He is also not known for firing officials
indicted for corruption.

http://saharareporters.com/2014/10/25/jonathan’s-re-election-campaign-director-haliru-mohammed-took-least-million-euros-bribe