ALLOW ATIKU ABUBAKAR INTO THE UNITED STATES FOR INTERROGATION AND COMPLETION OF INVESTIGATION

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)

The Department of Justice (DOJ)

The United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

Sen. Rob Portman
Sen. Thomas R. Carper
Sen. Rand Paul
Sen. James Lankford
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp
Sen. Gary C. Peters
Sen. Steve Daines
Sen. Jon Kyl
Sen. Margaret Hassan

We would like to bring to your attention the case of Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President of Nigeria, who was implicated in a series of money laundering and bribery investigations by the United States Senate in a published 2010 report by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (headed at the time by Senator Carl Levin), titled: KEEPING CORRUPTION OUT OF THE UNITED STATES: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FOREIGNCORRUPTIONREPORTFINAL710.pdf

The report found Atiku Abubakar culpable of bringing in tens of millions of dollars in ‘suspect funds’ into the United States. He is one of four ‘case studies’ profiled in the report, alongside such other notorious figures as the late Omar Bongo, President of Gabon for 41 years; international arms dealer Pierre Falcone, since convicted and imprisoned in France; and Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, son of the President of Equatorial Guinea, and currently Vice President of Equatorial Guinea, from whom Brazilian authorities recently seized $16 million in cash and luxury watches.

Two years earlier, in 2008, following a probe by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, German Technology Company AG Siemens pleaded guilty to paying bribes in excess of $2 million to Atiku Abubakar, through his wife, Jennifer Douglas, while the former served as Vice President of Nigeria.

Currently, Mr Abubakar, who has also been named in a number of high-profile corruption scandals at home in Nigeria, is running for the Presidency of the Nigeria. It is disheartening that at a time Nigeria is elevating the fight against corruption, and seeking the support and assistance of foreign countries like the United States to tackle corruption and repatriate looted funds, Mr Abubakar is aspiring to the highest office in the land.

Since shortly after that investigation was published, Mr Abubakar has not visited the United States. We believe that this is because the United States Government has refused to grant him a visa on account of his role in the corruption scandals highlighted in the Senate Report. In 2015 he put up his Washington, DC mansion for sale.

We are now aware that he is working hard to lobby the United States Government to reverse its decision regarding his eligibility for a visa. His goal is to make a statement by paying a visit to the United States and then using that to advance the narrative that the corruption allegations are unfounded and baseless.

We are also now aware that he has hired one of the most important lobbying firms in the United States, Ballard Partners, to ensure that he is granted a visa to the United States and is able to visit before the Nigerian presidential elections in February 2019: https://efile.fara.gov/docs/6415-Exhibit-AB-20180925-13.pdf

We are asking that the United States Government expedite action to grant him this visa to enable him face the justice he has evaded for so long.

We are also asking that the United States refuse to be pressured or lobbied into granting any concessions that might appear to absolve Mr Abubakar of complicity in grand corruption, or to allow itself be used to confer any measure of respectability on a man whose greatest achievement so far has been in the scale in which he has looted the resources of the people of Nigeria for his own benefit.

At this time when Nigeria requires all the support it can get in the fight against the grand corruption, the people of Nigeria cannot afford to have its war on corruption undermined by any actions arising from the intended or unintended complicity of the US Government, acting under the malicious influence of local or foreign actors of any kind.

Atiku Abubakar must be allowed to visit the United States, and when he visits, he must be made to account to law enforcement agencies for the crimes of financial fraud and betrayal of trust committed against the people of Nigeria more than a decade ago.

Atiku Abubakar’s direct American accomplice, former Congressman William Jefferson, was sent to prison for corruption. Another accomplice, Siemens AG, has since pleaded guilty to the crime of bribing Atiku Abubakar.

Atiku Abubakar on the other hand, continues to evade justice, almost a decade after the US Senate Report was published. That Abubakar even harbours dreams of becoming the President of Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy, boggles the mind, and demonstrates to the world the extent of his brazenness.

The United States Government cannot on the one hand declare its keenness to KEEP FOREIGN CORRUPTION OUT OF THE UNITED STATES, and on the other hand do anything that will confer any measure of respectability on a man who has been certifiably demonstrated as an enabler, purveyor and participant of grand multinational corruption.

This petition is therefore a call for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to place the said Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President of Nigeria, and current presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on a Watchlist, in order to enable his invitation or arrest for possible prosecution the moment he steps into the United States of America.


References:

FBI AFFIDAVIT
https://abcnews.go.com/images/WNT/9731_sorrel_%20ave_redacted_application_affidavit.pdf

Nigerian VP Tied Up in Jefferson Probe
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/img-src-images-abubakar-gif-hspace-5-vspace-5-align-left-nigerian-vp-tied-up-in-jefferson-probe

Jefferson Tells FBI He Delivered Cash To Home of Nigeria's Vice President
https://www.nysun.com/national/jefferson-tells-fbi-he-delivered-cash-to-home/33991/

Affidavit Outlines Alleged Scheme in Jefferson Case
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jun/07/nation/na-jefferson7_

Records tie Nigerian official to Jefferson bribe probe
http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/06/07/records_tie_nigerian_official_to_jefferson_bribe_probe/

Informant: Jefferson sent Nigerian VP bribe
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/13170084/ns/us_news-msnbc_wire_services/t/informant-jefferson-sent-nigerian-vp-bribe/

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