[size=13pt]FG stalls Halliburton scandal probe[/size]

Chris Agbambu, Abuja - 10.09.2009

THE Federal Government may have stalled further investigations into the $190 million Halliburton bribery scandal probe, following some revelations that have emerged from those so far quizzed and detained in connection with the scandal.

Informed and reliable sources disclosed to the Nigerian Tribune that the Federal Government was not comfortable with the linking of certain people and a political party with the bribe.

The source revealed that following this development, the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation decided to sit on the N50 million released two months ago by the government to facilitate further investigations on the matter.

Reliable sources disclosed that the French, Swiss and the British governments had given permission to the probe panel to visit their countries to unravel other details in the bribery scandal, but members of the panel could not access the money approved for it because of certain interests.

The source informed that the confession allegedly made by former Special Assistant to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr. Bodunde Adeyanju, that he personally collected the sum of $6 million from a former group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) jolted the authorities and were doing everything possible to stall further investigations.  

According to the source: “Even the search warrant issued by a competent court of jurisdiction to be executed on the house of Bodunde after his revelation was halted from the top.”

Nigerian Tribune learnt that about five people were deeply involved in the scandal and had been recommended to the Federal Government in the interim report that they should be prosecuted.

Among those recommended for prosecution included the former group managing director of NNPC, Chief Gaius Obaseki, brother of late head of state, Abdulkadir Abacha, who escaped to London in the wake of the probe and has since not returned.

Others are former Chief of Air Staff, AVM UD Bello and former Special Assistant to President Obasanjo, Mr. Bodunde Adeyanju.

Meanwhile, since the exit of the former Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Mike Okiro, who was the chairman of the probe panel, the new IGP, Mr. Ogbonna Onovo, is yet to address members of the panel as he automatically becomes the new chairman.

Tongues are now wagging about what becomes of the panel as efforts made for further investigations into the scam are being frustrated. [/b]

http://www.tribune.com.ng/10092009/news/news3.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But why is everything about this government tending towards Backwardness ??

na wa o

Surprise, surprise !!! When you have a criminal doubling as judge in his own case how will he be brought to justice? The Halliburton bribe takers (like OBJ) are all Yar Adua's Godfathers and kingmakers. He dare not disgrace them publicly by attempting to bring them to justice. The USA , for example , knows this and that is precisely why all its representatives now publicly speak about Nigeria derogatively.

see now? and that so-called senate president had the audacity to challenge mrs clinton
when she told us the truth to our face! sad!

Sincially speaking, am really at a loss about the stance and seriousness of the present government in fighting corruption. With all the noise about the determination to fight corruption and considering the several probe panels that have not yielded any auspicious results coupled with the less than impressive performance of the antigraft bodies. One begins to wonder if we are really serious in this country to fight this monster called corruption.

Its part of the rebranding project
Rebrand everytn gud to bad and tell the world we are good people and a great nation.
2011 pls come now

The whole anti corruption crusade is a facade, mere window dressing, untill the present set of leaders in this country are changed, a corruption free Nigeria will still be a mere pipe dream. . . . . .and so the case closes. Next scandal please!

Nigeria we hail thee.

Those calling for 2011 to come shall be more than disappointed as the case was with d super eagles of Nigeria & d carthage eagles of Tunisia.
Pls let all well meaning Nigerians do their best to ensure they are fair and just in handling any responsibilty bestowed on them & leave our leaders do what dey are best known for, stalling the progress of this great nation.

this whole regime is a sham! they say one thing and do the exact opposite!

It is a family affair

PDP(power to corrupt people)

not too surprise at the whole thing,this government speak with the two sides of its mouth.Democracy ala naija

Na wa for naija govt. Its part of the rule of law

not surprised. people decieving people (pdp) party!

Think they are smart? Not at all. Events will definately expose all the crooks in govt, sooner than later.

yes, sooner or later they'll pay for their thieving!

Andoakaa the worst nightmare of this administration.

This agf aondoakaa and the pdp( PEOPLE DECIEVING PEOPLE) are one of the worst things that has happened to nigeria they have virtually brought nigeria to its knees . why is the agf blocking the trials of those corrupt individuals that have ruined the nigerian economy? All these nonsense will surely end one day !!

menn i don dey tire o. . .sometimes we naija ppl no dey try at all

Rep William Jefferson (Atiku's associate) lost his seat at the Capitol/US Congress, indicted on11 of the 16 corruption charges. I'm not really moved by any investigation IPCC/EFCC conducts, its mere entertainment. Nothing often comes out of their investigation, Late Chief Gani (of blessed memory) often challenged them to bring one person to justice (not witch hunting/pre-calculated event of Alami-se-gba of Bayelsa State).

May the Lord help Nigeria.

as if we had expected anything different. the corrupt bastards know how to wind us up don't they, we accuses them of being stupid and corrupt but we are really the stupid ones, dignifying their act with intelligent responses as we always do

this is another one of aaondoaka's stunts. check today's vanguard newspapers:

FG, UK at loggerheads over Tinubu, Ibori, Attah
September 10, 2009.

Categories: Headlines

By Ise-Oluwa Ige
ABUJA — THE Federal Government has rejected a request by Britain for release of evidence needed for further investigation and prosecution of three Nigerian ex-governors in a London court.

Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Michael Aondoakaa (SAN) made the disclosure in Abuja, yesterday.
The said ex-governors including Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of Lagos State; Obong Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom State and James Ibori of Delta State were alleged to have involved themselves in activities touching on official corruption and abuse of office while holding power.


Ex-governors James Ibori, Obong Victor Attah and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
They were specifically accused to have pooled their respective states’ resources together to form an organisation styled African Development Fund Incorporation (ADFI) with the sole purpose of acquiring shares in ECONET, a telecommunications firm.

The ex-governors were said to have contributed whopping sums of monies running into millions of dollars into the ADFI Account with registration number 0140011552 while they held office.

We were cleared by EFCC —Govs
But in separate telephone interviews with Vanguard, yesterday, the three former state chief executives stood on common ground that they were cleared by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which actually withdrew the case from an Ikeja High Court because no prima facie case was established against them.

According to former Governor Tinubu; “I didn’t have any direct dealing with ECONET. The state government did and it was through Ibile Holding.

“What is my name doing there? There was no summon, nothing from anywhere. I have just returned from London. It’s sheer blackmail.

“How come something that was specially investigated by EFCC under Ribadu and we were all cleared suddenly came up again. Somebody somewhere must be up to some mischief. They will fail. My name must not be associated with this dirty thing”, he said.

Why FG won’t grant Britain’s wish —Aondoakaa
Confirming the ex-governors’ position Aondoakaa in his submission yesterday said he would not grant the request for more reasons than one including that the said allegation against the trio was investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and they were exonerated of committing any crime.
He said they were cleared in January 2009.

He accused former EFCC boss, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, as the brain behind the move by Britain to investigate and prosecute the three ex-governors offshore.

He said there was nothing he could do about the case, the investigating agency (EFCC) having returned a clean bill of health on the three ex-governors over the matter.

He said that it would be a different thing if EFCC on its own had said that it wanted to reopen investigation in the matter which it had not done.

He said as far as he was concerned, the matter was, for now, closed.
He added that even if the investigation is still on-going, he would still not have granted Britain’s request when all the ingredients of the alleged offence being investigated occurred in Nigeria and all the accused persons reside in Nigeria.

He said the proper place to prosecute such alleged offence, if there was any prima facie case against them, would be Nigeria and not London.

He said it was unfair and wicked for a disgruntled individual to stay abroad and be attacking the government of the day through the use of blackmail for selfish reasons.

He said he would not succumb to any blackmail.

He further said that Ribadu wanted to rubbish the President Yar’Adua’s government by the petition being pursued by Britain.

He gave the inclusion of the present Private Principal Secretary to Yar’Adua, Mr David Edevbie, as the one who signed the paper for the alleged questionable transactions of the ADFI as reason.

He said that he had the papers for the transaction and that there was nowhere Edevbie signed.
He gave a copy of the pact signed yesterday to newsmen for verification of his claim.

Aondoakaa (SAN) further argued that Ribadu, in an affidavit to the British investigating agency, claimed that ever since he was removed from office as EFCC Chairman, that Yar’Adua’s government has stalled criminal cases against powerful individuals with the exception of Henry Okah.

The Attorney-General said the affidavit evidence was not only economical with the truth but that it was calculated to rubbish him and President Yar’Adua’s government abroad.

He told newsmen that since he became the Attorney-General of the Federation, he never filed any nolle prosequi except the one he did in Okah’s case.

He explained that the role he played in Kalu’s case was in the interest of the rule of law.

He said that though his office is the one recognised by law to give approval to such request by Britain under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, he would not exercise that power in favour of Britain because it seemed the request was baseless.

The ex-governors were alleged to have sold the shares acquired for their respective states under alleged questionable circumstances which EFCC investigated for allegedly lacking in transparency.

Specifically, EFCC was said to have taken the ex-governors on for not returning the money recovered from the sales of the shares into the coffers of their respective states.

The regime of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu began the investigation but his successor, Mrs Farida Waziri in January, this year, exonerated the trio of committing any crime.
The Attorney-General who said he was not aware of the investigation said he was surprised to receive a request in June 2009 from Britain seeking evidence on the issue to prosecute the named ex-public officials before a London court over the matter when those involved had been cleared six months before.

ADFI directors granted bail
The case was charged to a London court yesterday, and the directors of the London-based African Development Fund Incorporation (ADFI) were released on bail.

Can u imagine after some people would open their rotten mouth and say that its gonna be well in this country, i have said it, until we as d masses come together and fight dis people, even if it means sacrifising our lives we would only keep talking, i am serious here i am ready to die for the cause of the future ones yet unborn what about u.

i am getting totally feed up with this country, corruption is now the order of the day.

Can somebody please stop Imo state government and NDDC from carrying out the present dredging of Nworie Rive, which is been dredge with a whopping 8.5billion Naira, a river that is not up to 5 kilometre and about 25m in width while the federal government is using only about 36billion to dredge river niger.

somebody should please stop them now.

MrCrackles:

Is it only the present set of leaders?
Dat shit called corruption has eaten real deep into Nigerians. . . . .
It's a scary situ!

Sure, most nigerians don't want the corruption to stop, because they believe it is the time of the people at the top now, their own time is coming. so by their own thinking why stop the corruption when they still have hope of getting there? If the corruption is stopped how will they make their own money?

chop i chop government!

i hope ya all see now how the "PDP" are backing tinubu. later ya all will call tinubu a hero who has the courage to stand against the PDP.
when will nigerians wake up and see that they are all the same thieving bastards? PDP, AC, ANPP, NCP and the rest are run by the same set of currupt pple only that wen they are sidelined in one party, thay move on to find a space in anoda party- like the case of atiku- . as far as i am concerned it is a perso thing, and they are all robbers!

they are not backing tinubu for no reason. look at the number of their men that are
also involved. that will tell you why!

Rule of law indeed!

ha hha ha ha ha, later they would have the audacity to blame Sony. Where is madam dora?