Former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission( EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu has for the first time expressed frustration with the inability of Nigeria to investigate and punish all who were implicated in the Halliburton bribery case during his tenure as boss of the anti-graft agency. Speaking in Abuja on Sunday, Ribadu said none of the top Nigerian culprits implicated in the $1.5 billion bribery scandal had been questioned and jailed in Nigeria while others from other countries were already serving various jail terms.


According to Ribadu, of the amount involved, top Nigerians got a total of $184 million within 10 years from an Italian firm that got a $6 billion gas project job in Nigeria. The case cost Halliburton $1.5 billion in fines in the United States. In his words, Ribadu said: “I first got hint of the case in France. I got back home and tried to investigate the case but it was very difficult or probably impossible because the companies were not here in Nigeria, they didn’t have account there, the people were not there. They had left.



“I rushed back to Paris. I was in Paris many times. I put in a request letter but after a year of trying to get French authorities to help us, the investigating magistrate told me that they could not get anyone to translate my letter from English to French. I knew it was a hopeless case.” Ribadu added that after failing to get Italy and Japan to help, he opted to go to the United States even though Dick Cheney, the then US vice president, was on the board of Halliburton.



Ribadu further said: “The Department of Justice in the United States took up the case. They investigated and prosecuted the case. They placed a fine of over $1.5 billion on the company, the biggest in the world for corporate corruption. But the sad aspect is this, in my own country, where the criminal activity took place, not a single person was made to face justice, especially after I was asked to leave my position. Sadly, Nigeria did not make a dollar out of it."


http://dawntodusknews.com/ex-efcc-boss-nuhu-ribadu-why-investigating-1-5bn-halliburton-bribery-scandal-was-frustrating/