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Chasing the Ghosts of the Corrupt Abacha Regime: Gilbert Chagoury, Clinton donor and diplomat With A Checkered Past

In July 2004, police lay in wait at an airfield in the far northeastern corner of Nigeria. Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese businessman and one-time adviser to the late dictator Sani Abacha, was set to touch down in his private jet. Nuhu Ribadu, then the country's top anti-corruption prosecutor, says that Chagoury was a kingpin in the corruption that defined Abacha's regime. "You couldn't investigate corruption without looking at Chagoury," Ribadu tells me in a recent interview in California.
Six years after Abacha's death, Ribadu's officers stood ready to take Chagoury down. Ribadu says that Chagoury made it possible for Abacha to steal billions of dollars and lined his own pockets in the process. The prosecutor says he indicted Chagoury and ordered his arrest for relatively minor violations related to Chagoury's businesses so that he could later bring additional charges for his activities in the Abacha era.

But, no sooner had Chagoury's plane hit the ground, than it took off again. Ribadu says it's likely that an airport official tipped him off, and Ribadu's big catch slipped away, literally into thin air.

Chagoury was among the last of the all-powerful middlemen who served the heads of oil-rich African states, says Philippe Vasset, longtime editor of Africa Energy Intelligence, one of a series of influential energy industry newsletters. "He [Chagoury] was the gatekeeper to Abacha's presidency," Vasset says.

In many African countries, a Western entrepreneur might hand over money to a fixer or middleman, who would then pass it on to a political leader in exchange for support for a business venture. In Nigeria, Vasset explains, Chagoury was just such a figure in the mid-1990s, when Abacha ruled the country and held the key to much of the country's oil wealth.

Today, Chagoury is a diplomat representing the tiny island nation of St. Lucia. He is also a friend of former President Bill Clinton and a generous philanthropist, who, since the Abacha years, has used his money to establish respectability. He appeared near the top of the Clinton Foundation donor list in 2008 as a $1 million to $5 million contributor, according to foundation documents. (His name made the list again in 2009.)

Chagoury's contribution to the Louvre in Paris some years back was large enough for the museum to name a gallery for him and his wife. In recent years, he has put up $10 million for the construction of medical and nursing schools in Lebanon, his parents' country of origin, that also bear the Chagoury name.

Unlike his friend, the former president, Chagoury conducts his affairs largely out of public view. He rarely talks to reporters.

But on a cool day in late 2008, I headed up a gently winding road in Beverly Hills, where Chagoury's Moorish-style villa sprawls across the top of a steep canyon. The home once belonged to entertainer Danny Thomas, and Richard Nixon, Raquel Welch, and Michael Caine have all lived in the neighborhood.

After a written request for an interview and many follow-up phone calls, Chagoury invited me to meet him. "We'll see if we can get along," he said. Chagoury's home is packed with art, antiques, and crystal chandeliers, and offers a staggering view across West Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean.

As I'm taking it all in, Chagoury climbs a thickly carpeted, winding staircase to the living room to greet me. He's a stout man, dressed in a navy blue sport coat with buttons that strain against a barrel chest. His fingernails are buffed and manicured, and he has a full head of salt-and-pepper hair.

Almost immediately, he has a proposal: Do your story, but don't sell your work to a media outlet. "Do it for me," he says, offering me access and contacts -- even the chance to write a book. In exchange, I would get cash, and he would get full control of the product. I politely turn him down, but he brings up the offer several times during the interview.

As we talk, I learn that much of what Chagoury says about himself is so out of sync with the public record and what others have told me -- even those who are friendly toward him -- that it seems he's not just in the market for positive spin, but for all-out reinvention.
When I bring up his days in Nigeria, he tells me that he detests his reputation as Abacha's middleman. "I am not in that business," he says. Rather, he has worked hard since he was a teenager, building a conglomerate called The Chagoury Group, which employs 20,000 people in Nigeria in construction, real estate development, telecommunications, and other sectors.

"I am an industrialist," he says in lightly accented, near-perfect English. "I spend a lot of time with my family. I don't have time to do all that people say I do."

"I have never bribed anyone," he says, looking me straight in the eye. "I have never had to make a crooked deal." He is absolutely sure of himself, even though he has offered me a bribe of sorts just minutes earlier.

As for Ribadu, the Nigerian investigator who says his officers nearly made that 2004 arrest on corruption charges, Chagoury says, "He's not such hot stuff." He tells me that Ribadu -- who until 2007 headed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, an agency similar to the FBI -- was an attack-dog set against the enemies of President Olusegun Obasanjo, who appointed him.

Ribadu was pushed out of his job after Obasanjo left office, and says he was given the freedom to act independently during his tenure and was ousted because of his zealous prosecution of high-level officials.

Chagoury, who turns 64 this month, was born in Lagos and is the eldest of eight children. He has dual citizenship in Lebanon and the United Kingdom because of his parents' heritage and because he was born in Nigeria while it was still under British rule.

His father came to West Africa in the 1930s from the northern Lebanese town of Miziara. The elder Chagoury followed what was by then a well-worn migrant trail to Nigeria, where he traded in textiles and helped his brother in a small trucking operation.

Chagoury is part of the Lebanese diaspora, which is by some estimates several times larger than the population of Lebanon, and includes such influential members as Mexican businessman Carlos Slim, the world's third richest man, Columbian entertainer Shakira, and American activist Ralph Nader.

Like their Palestinian and Jewish neighbors, the Lebanese have scattered about the world, and Chagoury seems equally at home in Lagos or Beverly Hills. He has also maintained close ties to his parents' home town of Miziara.

Today, Miziara survives -- and even thrives -- because of Chagoury and his brothers, says Gilbert Aoun, who was Lebanon's ambassador to Nigeria during Abacha's rule. Still, nine months of the year, the mountainous settlement of some 15,000 is a ghost town, Aoun says, because most Miziarans old enough to work are employed by the Chagourys in Nigeria.

Chagoury didn't grow up rich, but he says that he always wanted the security and prestige that money brings. He went into business with his father-in-law, and later with his brother. The family established several flour mills in Benin and Nigeria, a construction company in Nigeria, and a club in Lagos.

An Indispensable Adviser
Chagoury says he met Abacha by chance on a flight to the Niger Delta city of Port Harcourt, when the future dictator was a young officer. The two struck up a friendship, and when Abacha seized power in a 1993 coup, Chagoury became the general's indispensable adviser.

General Abacha was an eccentric man and a brutal leader, who consolidated his power by declaring martial law and jailing political rivals. He kept a menagerie of exotic animals and rarely removed his sunglasses. The regime drew worldwide condemnation in 1995, when activist playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other men who had campaigned against the environmental degradation of the oil-rich Niger Delta were executed for what most observers say were trumped-up murder charges.

From his earliest days in power, Abacha set the tone for an administration that would become the most corrupt in Nigeria's history. Today, more than a decade after the dictator's death, investigators from Washington DC to the Nigerian capital of Abuja are still unraveling the web of shady dealings around Abacha's rule.

Within months of taking office in 1993, Abacha began to divert money from Nigeria's central bank to the overseas bank accounts of his family members and associates, including Chagoury's. A lawsuit brought by the Nigerian government against Abacha's heirs and associates in the United Kingdom shows that the dictator fraudulently ordered the bank transfers for national security purposes.

By the time of Abacha's death in 1998, those so-called security payments would total $2 billion, but they would represent less than half the funds that money-laundering investigators around the world estimate that Abacha and his associates stole from their country.
However, Abacha found other ways to pad his bank accounts. A $180 million bribery scheme -- the largest ever discovered as part of a U.S. Justice Department investigation -- was hatched the first year Abacha was in office.

Halliburton's Nigerian Bribes
The scheme began in the early 1990s, when Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), at the time a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation, led a joint venture that bid for a $6 billion contract to build a sprawling liquefied natural gas facility in the Niger Delta.

The group won the bid, but not before Abacha had agreed to accept a $40 million bribe that he would share with other Nigerian officials, according to Department of Justice court papers. It was the first installment of $180 million in bribes that KBR would pay, not only to officials of the Abacha regime, but to officials of the two heads of state who succeeded him.

A few months before I interviewed Chagoury, former KBR CEO Jack Stanley had pleaded guilty in a Texas courtroom to charges related to organizing the bribery scheme that went on for a decade in Nigeria, and to taking millions in kickbacks for himself. Since then, two more KBR contractors have been indicted, and Halliburton entered a guilty plea and paid the government a record fine of more than $500 million.
Chagoury denies any involvement in the bribery case, but his name surfaces in notes taken by one of the indictees, Chodan, who kept detailed records of so-called cultural meetings, where bribes were discussed.

One entry reads, "$250 , to IPCO via Chagoury."
When I ask Chagoury about these records, he doesn't dispute that the note refers to a sum of $250 million, but he argues that it refers to a contract, which, he says, was legitimately awarded to one of his companies, IPCO Nigeria Limited, for construction related to the liquefied natural gas plant.

Chagoury has not been named by the Department of Justice or charged with any crime related to the KBR affair.

His work as an intermediary for Abacha went beyond business affairs. He was also deeply involved in diplomacy, even though he held no official government post. In the mid-1990s, when Nigeria came under increasing pressure from Washington to hold elections, Chagoury gained access to high-level U.S. emissaries like Jesse Jackson and Bill Richardson as well as to a number of senior State Department officials, according to Donald McHenry, a former American ambassador to the United Nations, who worked in U.S.-Nigeria diplomacy at the time.

The Clinton Connections
Chagoury, along with his wife and three of his children, were guests at a the Clinton's White House holiday dinner shortly after Chagoury gave nearly half a million dollars to a voter registration committee, Vote Now '96, according to a report in The Washington Post. (Chagoury would have been barred from donating directly to the Clinton campaign because he is not a U.S. citizen.) Since then, Chagoury and Clinton have traveled together and seen each other socially.

"Every one knows I'm friends with the Clintons," Chagoury says.

As Abacha's health began to fail in the late 1990s, Chagoury made major efforts to prop up the dictator. A State Department memo obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, entitled "The Health Watch on the Head of State Continues," shows that Chagoury appeared to have brought medical specialists and sophisticated medical equipment to the presidential residence in Abuja, while publicly downplaying the seriousness of Abacha's condition.

When Abacha died in June 1998, a second State Department memo notes that Chagoury placed an in-flight call from his private plane to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria to report that he was in touch with Nigeria's Provisional Ruling Council, which would be meeting later that day to discuss a successor to Abacha. In the phone call, Chagoury asked what governmental structure would be acceptable to U.S. officials, according to the memo.

Immediately after Abacha's death, Ribadu, then a young police investigator, says he began looking into the dictator's financial affairs. "It wasn't uncommon for Nigerian leaders to put money elsewhere," Ribadu says. "But the magnitude was beyond anybody's comprehension."
The money -- estimated at more than $4 billion -- was stashed in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and the Isle of Jersey in the names of dozens of individuals and companies. Ribadu argues that it was Chagoury who vouched for Abacha's sons at banks where the source of their assets might otherwise have been questioned.

Indeed, Chagoury's Swiss attorney, Luc Argand, told me that his client served as a reference for Abacha's sons at Credit Suisse. The Nigerian government eventually requested help from law enforcement around the world in tracking the stolen assets. In 2000, Chagoury was convicted in Geneva, Switzerland, of laundering money and aiding a criminal organization in connection with the billions of dollars stolen from Nigeria during the Abacha years.

Argand has insisted that Chagoury used the money for diplomatic missions on behalf of Abacha. Asked if he had records to substantiate that claim, Argand said he couldn't produce any. He also conceded that the money was "stolen by Abacha, and had to be returned."
However, Argand says that Chagoury had already decided on his own to return it. In the end, he says, his client agreed to a plea deal: Chagoury would pay a fine of a million Swiss francs and hand over $66 million to the Nigerian government. Swiss authorities promised to expunge the conviction after two years, which they have done.

In 1999, Chagoury won immunity from prosecution in a separate looted-assets case in Nigeria by agreeing to return money that he held in Swiss bank accounts. The precise amount that Chagoury returned is unclear.

Meanwhile, the hunt for Nigeria's stolen treasure continues. A panel appointed by Nigeria's current president, Umaru Yar'Adua, is currently investigating which Nigerian officials took bribes in the Halliburton case and has reportedly requested U.S. Department of Justice cooperation in the probe. However, some Nigeria watchers, including Ribadu, doubt the seriousness of the inquiry.

While the Nigerian government struggles to recoup the losses it suffered under Abacha, Chagoury has prospered and continued to win acceptance from influential people around the world.

Last year, he was knighted by the Catholic Church and inducted into the Order of St. Gregory the Great, an honor bestowed upon those who serve the church, including many who are big donors to the institution. Bob Hope, Ricardo Montalban, and Rupert Murdoch are among past recipients.
The Clinton Foundation did not respond to emailed questions and repeated phone calls about the nature of Bill and Hillary Clinton's relationship with Chagoury. Former Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe, who, according to The Washington Post, was a sponsor of Chagoury's invitation to the White House in 1996, also failed to return phone calls. A spokesman for former Clinton political advisor James Carville, also a Chagoury acquaintance, said that Carville could not comment on the relationship.

And Chagoury hasn't stopped earning his fortune. Knowledgeable sources say that Chagoury controls South Atlantic Petroleum, a company that was awarded a choice oil exploration license before Abacha's death. Three years ago, the company sold a portion of its government-granted concession to the Chinese oil company, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, for $2.7 billion.

In our interview, Chagoury didn't deny that he profited from the deal, but he said rumors that former President Clinton helped make the deal happen were untrue.

Chagoury is unfazed by the crackdown by the U.S. Justice Department on foreign bribery, exemplified by the Halliburton case, and waves off the recent spate of prosecutions like an elder statesman: "You have lobbyists; we have agents," he says.

"You are never going to stop corruption," because it's favoritism, and that's human nature, which laws won't change, he tells me.
It's no wonder he is so confident. He is now free to come and go in Nigeria, while his nemesis, corruption hunter Nuhu Ribadu, left the country last year, he says, after an attempt on his life.

Robin Urevich is a reporter in Monterey County, California. Her work has appeared on NPR, Marketplace, NPR affiliates KQED and KPCC, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Las Vegas Sun. She is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley School of Journalism.

This story was originally published by PBS Frontline.

Source: http://www.saharareporters.com/real-news/hot-topic/5893-chasing-the-ghosts-of-the-corrupt-abacha-regime-gilbert-chagoury-clinton-donor-and-diplomat-with-a-checkered-past.html

Chasing the Ghosts of the Corrupt Abacha Regime: Gilbert Chagoury, Clinton donor and diplomat With A Checkered Past

In July 2004, police lay in wait at an airfield in the far northeastern corner of Nigeria. Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese businessman and one-time adviser to the late dictator Sani Abacha, was set to touch down in his private jet. Nuhu Ribadu, then the country's top anti-corruption prosecutor, says that Chagoury was a kingpin in the corruption that defined Abacha's regime. "You couldn't investigate corruption without looking at Chagoury," Ribadu tells me in a recent interview in California.
Six years after Abacha's death, Ribadu's officers stood ready to take Chagoury down. Ribadu says that Chagoury made it possible for Abacha to steal billions of dollars and lined his own pockets in the process. The prosecutor says he indicted Chagoury and ordered his arrest for relatively minor violations related to Chagoury's businesses so that he could later bring additional charges for his activities in the Abacha era.

But, no sooner had Chagoury's plane hit the ground, than it took off again. Ribadu says it's likely that an airport official tipped him off, and Ribadu's big catch slipped away, literally into thin air.

Chagoury was among the last of the all-powerful middlemen who served the heads of oil-rich African states, says Philippe Vasset, longtime editor of Africa Energy Intelligence, one of a series of influential energy industry newsletters. "He [Chagoury] was the gatekeeper to Abacha's presidency," Vasset says.

In many African countries, a Western entrepreneur might hand over money to a fixer or middleman, who would then pass it on to a political leader in exchange for support for a business venture. In Nigeria, Vasset explains, Chagoury was just such a figure in the mid-1990s, when Abacha ruled the country and held the key to much of the country's oil wealth.

Today, Chagoury is a diplomat representing the tiny island nation of St. Lucia. He is also a friend of former President Bill Clinton and a generous philanthropist, who, since the Abacha years, has used his money to establish respectability. He appeared near the top of the Clinton Foundation donor list in 2008 as a $1 million to $5 million contributor, according to foundation documents. (His name made the list again in 2009.)

Chagoury's contribution to the Louvre in Paris some years back was large enough for the museum to name a gallery for him and his wife. In recent years, he has put up $10 million for the construction of medical and nursing schools in Lebanon, his parents' country of origin, that also bear the Chagoury name.

Unlike his friend, the former president, Chagoury conducts his affairs largely out of public view. He rarely talks to reporters.

But on a cool day in late 2008, I headed up a gently winding road in Beverly Hills, where Chagoury's Moorish-style villa sprawls across the top of a steep canyon. The home once belonged to entertainer Danny Thomas, and Richard Nixon, Raquel Welch, and Michael Caine have all lived in the neighborhood.

After a written request for an interview and many follow-up phone calls, Chagoury invited me to meet him. "We'll see if we can get along," he said. Chagoury's home is packed with art, antiques, and crystal chandeliers, and offers a staggering view across West Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean.

As I'm taking it all in, Chagoury climbs a thickly carpeted, winding staircase to the living room to greet me. He's a stout man, dressed in a navy blue sport coat with buttons that strain against a barrel chest. His fingernails are buffed and manicured, and he has a full head of salt-and-pepper hair.

Almost immediately, he has a proposal: Do your story, but don't sell your work to a media outlet. "Do it for me," he says, offering me access and contacts -- even the chance to write a book. In exchange, I would get cash, and he would get full control of the product. I politely turn him down, but he brings up the offer several times during the interview.   

As we talk, I learn that much of what Chagoury says about himself is so out of sync with the public record and what others have told me -- even those who are friendly toward him -- that it seems he's not just in the market for positive spin, but for all-out reinvention.
When I bring up his days in Nigeria, he tells me that he detests his reputation as Abacha's middleman. "I am not in that business," he says. Rather, he has worked hard since he was a teenager, building a conglomerate called The Chagoury Group, which employs 20,000 people in Nigeria in construction, real estate development, telecommunications, and other sectors.

"I am an industrialist," he says in lightly accented, near-perfect English. "I spend a lot of time with my family. I don't have time to do all that people say I do."

"I have never bribed anyone," he says, looking me straight in the eye. "I have never had to make a crooked deal." He is absolutely sure of himself, even though he has offered me a bribe of sorts just minutes earlier.

As for Ribadu, the Nigerian investigator who says his officers nearly made that 2004 arrest on corruption charges, Chagoury says, "He's not such hot stuff." He tells me that Ribadu -- who until 2007 headed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, an agency similar to the FBI -- was an attack-dog set against the enemies of President Olusegun Obasanjo, who appointed him.

Ribadu was pushed out of his job after Obasanjo left office, and says he was given the freedom to act independently during his tenure and was ousted because of his zealous prosecution of high-level officials.

Chagoury, who turns 64 this month, was born in Lagos and is the eldest of eight children. He has dual citizenship in Lebanon and the United Kingdom because of his parents' heritage and because he was born in Nigeria while it was still under British rule.

His father came to West Africa in the 1930s from the northern Lebanese town of Miziara. The elder Chagoury followed what was by then a well-worn migrant trail to Nigeria, where he traded in textiles and helped his brother in a small trucking operation.

Chagoury is part of the Lebanese diaspora, which is by some estimates several times larger than the population of Lebanon, and includes such influential members as Mexican businessman Carlos Slim, the world's third richest man, Columbian entertainer Shakira, and American activist Ralph Nader.

Like their Palestinian and Jewish neighbors, the Lebanese have scattered about the world, and Chagoury seems equally at home in Lagos or Beverly Hills. He has also maintained close ties to his parents' home town of Miziara.

Today, Miziara survives -- and even thrives -- because of Chagoury and his brothers, says Gilbert Aoun, who was Lebanon's ambassador to Nigeria during Abacha's rule. Still, nine months of the year, the mountainous settlement of some 15,000 is a ghost town, Aoun says, because most Miziarans old enough to work are employed by the Chagourys in Nigeria.

Chagoury didn't grow up rich, but he says that he always wanted the security and prestige that money brings. He went into business with his father-in-law, and later with his brother. The family established several flour mills in Benin and Nigeria, a construction company in Nigeria, and a club in Lagos.

An Indispensable Adviser
Chagoury says he met Abacha by chance on a flight to the Niger Delta city of Port Harcourt, when the future dictator was a young officer. The two struck up a friendship, and when Abacha seized power in a 1993 coup, Chagoury became the general's indispensable adviser.

General Abacha was an eccentric man and a brutal leader, who consolidated his power by declaring martial law and jailing political rivals. He kept a menagerie of exotic animals and rarely removed his sunglasses. The regime drew worldwide condemnation in 1995, when activist playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other men who had campaigned against the environmental degradation of the oil-rich Niger Delta were executed for what most observers say were trumped-up murder charges.

From his earliest days in power, Abacha set the tone for an administration that would become the most corrupt in Nigeria's history. Today, more than a decade after the dictator's death, investigators from Washington DC to the Nigerian capital of Abuja are still unraveling the web of shady dealings around Abacha's rule.

Within months of taking office in 1993, Abacha began to divert money from Nigeria's central bank to the overseas bank accounts of his family members and associates, including Chagoury's. A lawsuit brought by the Nigerian government against Abacha's heirs and associates in the United Kingdom shows that the dictator fraudulently ordered the bank transfers for national security purposes.

By the time of Abacha's death in 1998, those so-called security payments would total $2 billion, but they would represent less than half the funds that money-laundering investigators around the world estimate that Abacha and his associates stole from their country.
However, Abacha found other ways to pad his bank accounts. A $180 million bribery scheme -- the largest ever discovered as part of a U.S. Justice Department investigation -- was hatched the first year Abacha was in office.

Halliburton's Nigerian Bribes
The scheme began in the early 1990s, when Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), at the time a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation, led a joint venture that bid for a $6 billion contract to build a sprawling liquefied natural gas facility in the Niger Delta.

The group won the bid, but not before Abacha had agreed to accept a $40 million bribe that he would share with other Nigerian officials, according to Department of Justice court papers. It was the first installment of $180 million in bribes that KBR would pay, not only to officials of the Abacha regime, but to officials of the two heads of state who succeeded him.

A few months before I interviewed Chagoury, former KBR CEO Jack Stanley had pleaded guilty in a Texas courtroom to charges related to organizing the bribery scheme that went on for a decade in Nigeria, and to taking millions in kickbacks for himself. Since then, two more KBR contractors have been indicted, and Halliburton entered a guilty plea and paid the government a record fine of more than $500 million.
Chagoury denies any involvement in the bribery case, but his name surfaces in notes taken by one of the indictees, Chodan, who kept detailed records of so-called cultural meetings, where bribes were discussed.

One entry reads, "$250 ,  to IPCO via Chagoury."
When I ask Chagoury about these records, he doesn't dispute that the note refers to a sum of $250 million, but he argues that it refers to a contract, which, he says, was legitimately awarded to one of his companies, IPCO Nigeria Limited, for construction related to the liquefied natural gas plant.

Chagoury has not been named by the Department of Justice or charged with any crime related to the KBR affair.

His work as an intermediary for Abacha went beyond business affairs. He was also deeply involved in diplomacy, even though he held no official government post. In the mid-1990s, when Nigeria came under increasing pressure from Washington to hold elections, Chagoury gained access to high-level U.S. emissaries like Jesse Jackson and Bill Richardson as well as to a number of senior State Department officials, according to Donald McHenry, a former American ambassador to the United Nations, who worked in U.S.-Nigeria diplomacy at the time.

The Clinton Connections
Chagoury, along with his wife and three of his children, were guests at a the Clinton's White House holiday dinner shortly after Chagoury gave nearly half a million dollars to a voter registration committee, Vote Now '96, according to a report in The Washington Post. (Chagoury would have been barred from donating directly to the Clinton campaign because he is not a U.S. citizen.) Since then, Chagoury and Clinton have traveled together and seen each other socially.

"Every one knows I'm friends with the Clintons," Chagoury says.

As Abacha's health began to fail in the late 1990s, Chagoury made major efforts to prop up the dictator. A State Department memo obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, entitled "The Health Watch on the Head of State Continues," shows that Chagoury appeared to have brought medical specialists and sophisticated medical equipment to the presidential residence in Abuja, while publicly downplaying the seriousness of Abacha's condition.

When Abacha died in June 1998, a second State Department memo notes that Chagoury placed an in-flight call from his private plane to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria to report that he was in touch with Nigeria's Provisional Ruling Council, which would be meeting later that day to discuss a successor to Abacha. In the phone call, Chagoury asked what governmental structure would be acceptable to U.S. officials, according to the memo.

Immediately after Abacha's death, Ribadu, then a young police investigator, says he began looking into the dictator's financial affairs. "It wasn't uncommon for Nigerian leaders to put money elsewhere," Ribadu says. "But the magnitude was beyond anybody's comprehension."
The money -- estimated at more than $4 billion -- was stashed in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and the Isle of Jersey in the names of dozens of individuals and companies. Ribadu argues that it was Chagoury who vouched for Abacha's sons at banks where the source of their assets might otherwise have been questioned.

Indeed, Chagoury's Swiss attorney, Luc Argand, told me that his client served as a reference for Abacha's sons at Credit Suisse. The Nigerian government eventually requested help from law enforcement around the world in tracking the stolen assets. In 2000, Chagoury was convicted in Geneva, Switzerland, of laundering money and aiding a criminal organization in connection with the billions of dollars stolen from Nigeria during the Abacha years.

Argand has insisted that Chagoury used the money for diplomatic missions on behalf of Abacha. Asked if he had records to substantiate that claim, Argand said he couldn't produce any. He also conceded that the money was "stolen by Abacha, and had to be returned."
However, Argand says that Chagoury had already decided on his own to return it. In the end, he says, his client agreed to a plea deal: Chagoury would pay a fine of a million Swiss francs and hand over $66 million to the Nigerian government. Swiss authorities promised to expunge the conviction after two years, which they have done.

In 1999, Chagoury won immunity from prosecution in a separate looted-assets case in Nigeria by agreeing to return money that he held in Swiss bank accounts. The precise amount that Chagoury returned is unclear.

Meanwhile, the hunt for Nigeria's stolen treasure continues. A panel appointed by Nigeria's current president, Umaru Yar'Adua, is currently investigating which Nigerian officials took bribes in the Halliburton case and has reportedly requested U.S. Department of Justice cooperation in the probe. However, some Nigeria watchers, including Ribadu, doubt the seriousness of the inquiry.

While the Nigerian government struggles to recoup the losses it suffered under Abacha, Chagoury has prospered and continued to win acceptance from influential people around the world.

Last year, he was knighted by the Catholic Church and inducted into the Order of St. Gregory the Great, an honor bestowed upon those who serve the church, including many who are big donors to the institution. Bob Hope, Ricardo Montalban, and Rupert Murdoch are among past recipients.
The Clinton Foundation did not respond to emailed questions and repeated phone calls about the nature of Bill and Hillary Clinton's relationship with Chagoury. Former Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe, who, according to The Washington Post, was a sponsor of Chagoury's invitation to the White House in 1996, also failed to return phone calls. A spokesman for former Clinton political advisor James Carville, also a Chagoury acquaintance, said that Carville could not comment on the relationship.

And Chagoury hasn't stopped earning his fortune. Knowledgeable sources say that Chagoury controls South Atlantic Petroleum, a company that was awarded a choice oil exploration license before Abacha's death. Three years ago, the company sold a portion of its government-granted concession to the Chinese oil company, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, for $2.7 billion.

In our interview, Chagoury didn't deny that he profited from the deal, but he said rumors that former President Clinton helped make the deal happen were untrue.

Chagoury is unfazed by the crackdown by the U.S. Justice Department on foreign bribery, exemplified by the Halliburton case, and waves off the recent spate of prosecutions like an elder statesman: "You have lobbyists; we have agents," he says.

"You are never going to stop corruption," because it's favoritism, and that's human nature, which laws won't change, he tells me.
It's no wonder he is so confident. He is now free to come and go in Nigeria, while his nemesis, corruption hunter Nuhu Ribadu, left the country last year, he says, after an attempt on his life.

Robin Urevich is a reporter in Monterey County, California. Her work has appeared on NPR, Marketplace, NPR affiliates KQED and KPCC, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Las Vegas Sun. She is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley School of Journalism.

This story was originally published by PBS Frontline.

Source: http://www.saharareporters.com/real-news/hot-topic/5893-chasing-the-ghosts-of-the-corrupt-abacha-regime-gilbert-chagoury-clinton-donor-and-diplomat-with-a-checkered-past.html

See this video and make comments! :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCoI-B9AYjs&feature=related

====

I think for a man who doesn't live in Naija. . .or lives in a place that is predominantly white. . .I mean you may only see white people for the whole day, getting married could be one heck of a decision to make! Now, the problem is NOT that there are no human beings to get married to. In fact, you may not mind getting married to a white lady but look 15-20 years down the line. . .you think. . . will a white person be the best option for you? Note, your options are somewhat limited to that in that environment anyways. . .but you know there's something that makes you think a black woman is the REAL choice if you had to make it. I have family who got married to a white lady and today. . . it is history!

Honestly, I have thought about this for a while and getting married is not the issue. Money NOT the issue. Education. . .better than the "average" education. Looks, attitude, etc NOT the problem but after working hard to get to a comfortable point in life and you are still young, it will be stupid to get into a marriage you may not be "happiest" with or get divorced in future (for several and any reasons!). Now, I see this video and I'm wondering what a crazy world. . .demand and supply is really mismatched and see the sort of problem it is creating? OR, could it be that these women (in real life have other problems which makes guys not to stick with them?)

Anywayz, see this video and make comments! :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCoI-B9AYjs&feature=related

Plus, where (in America) are Naija women located in decent numbers otherwise, I go vex go naija go marry o??

Hahahaha. . .what ridiculousness!!!??

Okay, NL. . .I found this a real JOKE and I wanted to share it with you! What do you think? Honestly, this CANNOT even be the biggest backside in a neighborhood in Naija and see how people are dying for it?? And all that trouble to "maintain" the backside?

http://dimewars.com/Video/Default.aspx?vn=Brazil%27s+Biggest+Booty+-+Andressa+Soares+Documentary&BCMediaID=e595bd4b-5789-4f34-9ab7-efffcadf4727

Becomerich is actually human. . .not a bad person to talk to. . .he knows some of US know where he is and we can get him if WE want! We have spoken to him before only that his feistyness sometime make him do his ridiculous maps!

Hahaha. . .

Yes, in the dream of his demented and paid supporters! (They know themselves).

Okay, NL has heard.

shilling:
I've lived in many places, and I've seen very few people with legs as nice as mine (just saying ) other than my sisters. My fingers also look pretty amazing, or so everyone says. By the way, I'm kinda flat footed.

Shilling. . .those eyes na wa o. . .one of my fine cousins dey like call am "oloju come and do"!

How Victoria na or na ?

Meekzy:
Interesting theory i must say but if u r saying dat flat footed ladies r unbeautiful then u r biased

No, no Meekzy I am not being biased. The flat-footedness issue relates to athleticism and body structure mostly! I don't think this solely determines facial beauty but the ladies that I mentioned here with the attributes are VERY BEAUTIFUL even FACIALLY and they are NOT fair-skinned in case that may be construed as my definition of "beauty" in this case, it is not!

Perhaps, the title I chose is not the most appropriate but I have a theory: you can determine how physically beautiful a person (male or female) by looking at the geometry of their legs, toes and fingers. Now, before you slag off this proposition, especially if you haven't made this observation, I challenge you to do so and you will be amazed how accurate it is! This is from my own experience and study which I have done somewhat consciously and subconsciously for some time now.

1. There are two "perfect" configurations of toes! I wish I could show you pictures but I will describe them and you can form the picture yourself. The first one is when the biggest toe, the next 1 to it down to the last decrease in length proportionally and are offset from each other by approximately the same distance. There is no "6th" toe or a toe seeming to climb on another one or the last toe very unusually small! Second configuration is when the biggest toe, next 1 up to the 4th one are approximately the same length (mostly) and the last one a bit shorter. In both configurations, the same proportions are quite apparent by just looking! NOW: Anyone lady or man having these two configurations will MOST LIKELY be good looking physically (NOT necessarily the FACE) but a significant deviation from these will indicate less beauty and in fact, some defect which you cannot see immediately except the person tells you.

2. Legs! OMG. . .any leg lovers on this NL? Well, I should know for I have not only seen but dated a couple of girls with the MOST BEAUTIFUL LEGS you will ever see in this world! I mean, you could look at those LEGS ALL DAY! No, I won't mention names in case they ever read this thread!  . What can / does a person's leg tell you? A lot! If you ever see a girl with beautiful. . .perfect straight legs where the configuration from the thighs to the knees, to the calf, ankle and feet is perfect (NOT FLAT FOOTED). . .you can bet all the MONEY in CBN . . .she will have a beautiful, well-shaped, well-molded and breath-taking backside! I am NOT saying over-sized or FAT backside. . .please note the salient difference! Such a person will most likely be more athletic because of much better balance compared to someone who is maybe flat footed!

3. Fingers? Please reference #1 above for they go hand-in-hand, for the most part!

NOW, savvy NLanders. . .has anyone noticed the same or you have in fact seen the total reverse? There will, no doubt be some exceptions but this is REAL which I have seen myself. So, what do you people think? Abeg, DON'T bash anyone here. . .just say your own and go or stay and read! 

Messi CANNOT play without XAVI and INIESTA or the several good ballers in his team! Inter Vs Barca saw Xavi well neutralized and except for the bad defending by Inter, Barca won't have scored any goal! What did Messi do all night? Took a shot or a couple of them but with Xavi held down, no Iniesta, Messi had an ordinary night!

Ronaldinho is not a perfect man so he has is flaws, some say he wasn't consistent. Okay, but Dinho can play all by himself. . .he doesn't need someone to pass him the ball in a good position! He can create his own position. . .get past any player with several step-overs, flip-flaps and crazy moves and you cannot say he is slow moving the ball! Messi. . . from reports hates being in the 18-yard box when a corner is being taken or a ball is being lobbed in because he is short at 5' 7". . .he has no chance against me who is just about 5' 10". . .but can you see how tall a lot of defenders are? 6' 0"+! However, Messi has incredibly fast legs. . .his short stature gives him very good balance which makes him more dangerous because he can move the ball very fast and it is not very easy to knock him down as a result of his lower center of gravity.

All said. . .Dinho is much more of a complete player than Messi. . .and an asset for setting up several dangerous balls for his team mates because he can draw defenders to himself, make one or two dribbles and NOT lose the ball and make a visionary pass!

I lost count already and he may as well lock NL so we can not comment again!

Okay, just woke-up and back to this thread but it appears some people MUST turn an innocuous and valid observation into a fight? Well, I "fight" very well and mean. . .check NL but I am simply not interested and the disclaimers I put at the beginning of the post and towards the end should show that this post is not about bashing anyone. Anyone who is not able to see these might as well fall into the category of women who are really dumb and will attack vociferously to "cover" their lack of quality brain cells?

Anyways, to indie22: There's nothing to get over. . .you have not made any sensible contribution to the discussion. Note: you are not obligated to make a comment if you don't know what to say.

Eyah: I am very good looking and athletic. I make no comment about intelligence but note that my example of my mum and sisters is just to reinforce that there are exceptions despite this somewhat profound observation.

Fabiluv: Yes, I have seen but, statistically, they are insignificant compared to the reverse.

This is NOT about bashing any woman but please contribute intelligibly:

I know there will always be an exception to any rule, in fact several exceptions depending on the case under consideration. However, have you guys noticed the following:

Most physically beautiful girls are usually very dull and silly. . .they will argue on something they really do not know and think they MUST be right even if you are an "expert" in that field! Yes, beauty is subjective but there is beauty that is almost universally undeniable (e.g. something like Miss World, Most Beautiful Girl, etc)

Most very smart girls (not average brains, but the one you, a very sharp guy, will vouch for) are usually deficient in physical beauty but OMG, they could be as smart as a whip! My lady friend who qualified as a medical doctor at 22 (in Naija but has since left and now lives in a foreign county) is one of the most conversational and smartest people I have met. . .you could talk about several things for hours! Though tall and hot, but not beautiful! Another class mate while I studied back in Nigeria was literally going to displace me as best student years ago, never the less. . .she finished 1st Class from Ife but beauty? NO! At best average or less!

Now I am not here to bash ladies for I have sisters and a mum who is very bright and the smartest mum indeed. . .but have you guys noticed the same? How about the ladies? What trend have you noticed about guys if you have ever noticed such a thing?

Generally, how do you cope in a relationship where the other person is just not smart enough and not demonstrating a will to learn?

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-434197.0.html

Anyone see this dim bulb of a woman?

Plans to move sick President Umaru Yar'Adua from the presidential villa to katsina has again run into troubled waters, pointblanknews.com has learnt. A flank of the family is insisting that he be taken home for sundry reasons which include his vegetative state, and to ensure he is  not impeached while still in the Villa.


This is coming on the heels of feelers from the presidential villa that Turai  is fuming over the interview granted CNN by Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan

The Senate's National Interest Group, and the Nigeria First Forum in the House last week gave the ministers two weeks to either invoke section 144, or leave the National Assembly with no option but to impeach Yar' Adua.

However, pointblanknews.com learnt that section 144 is not on the plate because the Acting President has showed no interest in it. This, we learnt is because he does not want to be seen as a power hungry desperado who feels nothing for his sick boss.


Sources disclosed on monday that sequel to pressure from sundry quarters, the plan to move Yar'Adua has been stalled as medical equipment at his Katsina are yet to be in place.
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According to our source, the family wants the sick president to be moved even though Turai is insisting that he be left in the villa. She had been at daggers drawn with a meeber of the family, Dahiru Manga who has consistently insisted that his kinsman be taken to katsina. But Turai has refused because she feels such move could make her and her flank lose out in the power equation in the villa.

Pointblanknews.com also gathered that Turai views Jonathan's disclosure to CNN that the family has isolated Yar'Adua as a personal indictment. She and other close allies like Taminu Kurfi, Abba Ruma, it was learnt are very upset with Jonathan's who said that the isolation of Yar'Adua is causing anxiety amongst Nigerians.

It was further learnt that they took exceptions to Jonathan's response to Chritine Amanpours question on whether Yar'Adua would be able to return as president. The Acting President had said ' I cant say that. it is diffficult for any of us mortals to say"

According to our source " they were shocked wwhen the acting president said they were the ones isolating Yar'Adua. But no one expected him to lie about the situation. We all know he has not seen Yar'Adua, and that Turai and her cabal are isolating the man. They also felt bad that he said the continued isolation was causing anxiety, but is true"

On the continued isolation of his boss, Jonathan told CNN " the thinking of family is that they should isolate him from

Source: http://www.pointblanknews.com/News/os3231.html

• Jonathan under pressure to open probe
AS political power groups reposition in the ongoing power play in Abuja, Nigeria's seat of power, a fresh wave of Machiavellian masterstroke is already rearing its head. A document-- Report of Investigation into the huge sums of money spent on Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution between June 1999 and May 2007 without Commensurate Result-- long thought buried and forgotten by the core participants has recently resurfaced. Otherwise known as the Power Probe Report, it is a summary of the findings of the House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel, finalised on July 2008 and presently generating its fair share of controversy with various interest groups working hard to ensure that the outcome favours them.


National Daily findings showed that Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has suddenly found himself in the eye of the storm once again. Report has it that the Acting President is under enormous pressure to recall the report for necessary attention. Jonathan's recent promise to revamp the country's deplorable power sector has emboldened some political gladiators to prod him to go after the identified culprits.

Authentic Report
Since the news of the availability of the report broke, concerned interests have worked very hard to make sure that it was not made public; but the actual report signed and prepared for release by Honourable Ndudi Godwin Elumelu and Mallam S.Y. Ahmed, Chairman and Committee Clerk respectively, was made available to National Daily.

The report condenses the findings of the Committee on the investigation conducted into the huge sums of money spent on power generation, transmission and distribution between June 1999 and May 2007. In the course of the investigation, the Committee reviewed 105 sets of memoranda from public officials, private citizens, corporate organizations and non-governmental bodies.

In addition to the memoranda submitted, the Committee held public hearing from 11th March till 12th May, 2008. Activities of the Committee climaxed with a tour of project sites across the country. The Committee found that the sum of $13.28 billion (N2.5 trillion) was expended on the Power Sector during the period, with further unfunded commitments of over $12 billion.

The Public Hearing also revealed that many strange things happened in the power sector during the period, including financial, technical and legal irregularities. The most striking revelation was the flagrant disregard of Sections 80(3 and (4) of the 1999 Constitution, which states clearly:

“(3) No moneys shall be withdrawn from any public fund of the Federation, other than the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation, unless the issue of those moneys has been authorized by an Act of the National Assembly.

“(4) No moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other public fund of the Federation, except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly.”

On many occasions, legal processes in the appropriation and release of funds for the power projects were circumvented. Project costs were routinely and massively inflated; in a number of cases up to 1000 per cent project over-pricing was reported. Most troubling was the extremely low performance level after three or four years of commencement of projects.

In about 50 per cent of the projects visited, contractors collected billions of Naira and disappeared from project sites while most project consultants maintained a conspiratorial silence.

The investigation showed beyond doubt that the major problem of the Nigerian power sector during the review period was not the means to execute projects but efficiency in the management of resources. The weakest point in the project failure was in plan execution, a key factor in the success of any project. Project management teams treated planned time schedules as if they did not exist.

The intended power projects were part of a larger reform programme of the administration but as it has turned out, the infrastructure reforms have not made a difference in the country. It was also found that failure to execute plans did not arise from technical incompetence but from weak management and institutional processes. What is lacking is not capital or technical expertise but fiscal discipline, programme supervision by responsible consultants and a willingness to bring erring contractors and officials to book.

The report noted that with the phenomenal revenues accruing to the country from crude oil over the past 10 years, resources have never been as generously available as they are in Nigerian history. Unfortunately, huge sums were spent but there was little or nothing to show for the expenditure in terms of increased megawatts of electricity.

The technology to deliver sustainable power and other infrastructure solutions in Nigeria is available in the world market. Our problem is mainly human and managerial rather than technological. The Report came in Eight Volumes. The Committee took the contents of all the volumes into account in arriving at the findings and recommendations.

Background to the Investigation
On 31st January, 2008, the Minority Leader Hon. Mohammed Ali Ndume and 103 other members brought a motion urging the House of Representatives to review the Power Reform Programme Performance. After a vigorous and robust debate in which numerous members took active part, the House, by Resolution No HR/07/2008 of Thursday, 31st January, 2008, resolved to:

“Mandate the Committee on Power and Steel to carry out a comprehensive and thorough investigation and conduct a Public Hearing into how the huge sums of money was expended on power generation, transmission and distribution without any commensurate result and report back to the House within 4 weeks.”

Estimates of the power needs of the country in 2008 were put at over 14,000 Mega Watts (mw) but as at January 2008, generation capacity was around 2,000 mw. In order to bridge the wide gap between the demand for electricity and existing supply, it was absolutely necessary to achieve rapid increases in power generation, transmission and distribution capacities. Regrettably, efforts made in the recent past involving huge financial outlays failed to produce the desired results.

President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua gave expression to the strong concern of Nigerians in this regard when, on Monday, 14th January, 2008, he wondered aloud why the “US$10 billion (N1.2 trillion) invested in the power sector between 2000 and 2007 has not translated into power generation, transmission and distribution”. The President made these remarks when he received the World Bank Vice President for Africa, Dr. (Mrs.) Obiageli Ezekwesili at the State House, Abuja.

A natural question that arose was: what happened to the huge sums spent on electric power during the eight years of President Olusegun Obasanjo?

Immediately the House Resolution was forwarded to the Committee by the Clerk of the House of Representatives vide his letter Ref. No. NASS/CHR/B/4/Vol.111/48 of 5th February, 2008, the Committee in carrying out the mandate broke up into five ad-hoc sub-Committees, each designated to take charge of the various activities involved in the investigative exercise: Finance and Logistics; Information; Media and Publicity; Organising; and Technical Committee for Report Writing, headed by Hon. Ndudi Godwin Elumelu.

Terms of the investigation
The investigation intended to: determine the total expenditures and commitments in the power sector of the Federal Government, its agencies and other parties such as the NNPC joint venture partners for the period, encompassing expenditures already incurred as well as outstanding commitments; to establish the extent of work carried per project as per specifications within the scopes provided; determine the reasons/factors why the huge expenditures failed to produce the desired results; verify the scope and pricing of projects and contracts; determine to what extent Due Process was complied with in the awards and payments for major projects; and to determine the effectiveness or otherwise of the Project Development and Management frameworks, processes and procedures in the implementation of the programs and projects by the various agencies.

It's brief also included the following: to identify financial, engineering/technical and legal/administrative lapses which resulted in huge expenditures without commensurate result; Assess/evaluate the economic and social cost to the nation of the financial, engineering/technical and legal/administrative lapses that may be discovered; Identify individuals and organisations responsible for these lapses and recommend actions to be taken by the appropriate agencies; Identify key areas (projects and programs) if any, where money would be recovered or savings made for the Government; recommend measures to avoid future lapses of such magnitude and their attendant economic and social costs to the nation; and Suggest the forward for the power sector.

More money, little impact
On Tuesday, 11th March, 2008 hearing commenced at the Conference Hall of the House of Representatives (New Building), National Assembly Complex, Abuja, and lasted for an initial period of eight days (between Tuesday, 11th March and Thursday 20th March, 2008) from 10.00 am to 7.00 pm each day, as well as on the 12th of May, 2008.

Former President of Nigeria, His Excellency Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and his Vice President, His Excellency Alhaji Atiku Abubakar were both invited to appear before the Committee at a later stage of the public hearing. Both of them were unable to attend for reasons which they duly communicated to the Committee and which the Committee accepted.

Late Mrs. Fatima Balaraba Ibrahim, Hon. Minister of State for Energy (Power), opened the can of worms when she detailed the amount spent on the power sector between 1999 to 2007: 1999 N6.697 billion, 2000 N49.78 billion, 2001-N70.927 billion, 2002-N41.196 billion, 2003-N55.59 billion, 2004-N54.49 billion, 2005-N70.39 billion, 2006-N72.393 billion, 2007-N61.10l billion.

On the National Independent Power Project (NIPP), she disclosed that N25.535 billion, US$2.404 billion and Euro 303.877 million were released, altogether totalling $3.07 billion. The loans from the World Bank for power projects, she said, were $0.46 billion. She put Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) at N505.9 billion. Differences, she explained do happen due to differences in exchange rates. All the figures given summed up to $13.278, 939,409.94.

Information given by Dr. Abdullahi Aliyu, then Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Energy (Power) was equally useful. He gave details of Federal Government expenditure on power sector between 1999 and 2007 which amounted to $13.28 billion.

Undue process
Clarifying the role of the Ministry in awards and payments for NIPP contracts, he said there were over 300 contracts in respect of the NIPP, all of which were signed by the then Minister of Power and Steel, Senator Liyel Imoke. He said that a total of 340 different payments were made by the Accountant General of the Federation in respect of various projects. He also averred that NIPP projects did not go through the Ministerial Tenders Board. The Minister became the Due Process Office. The Permanent Secretary was also not accepted as Accounting Officer for NIPP projects.
However, there was a Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) responsible directly to the President. But there is no record of inputs by the Ministry. He admitted that a number of NIPP projects had problems and that the Ministry had set up a Task Force to obtain status reports. There were payments that were not supposed to be made that had been made, he averred. In many cases, contractors were given advance payments but consultants supposed to monitor the contractors had not been paid.

Some of the monies paid and the companies that benefited in foreign currencies were: General Electric (Supply of Gas Turbines)-$196 million, Marubeni Corporation-$49.935 million, Marubeni Corporation-$40,281,302.57, Marubeni Corporation-$16,718,334.93, G. E. Energy-$19,622,410.95, Rockson Engineering Company Limited-$13,494,753.93, Rockson Engineering Company Limited-$14,999,249.l3, Rockson Engineering Company Limited- $16,718,334.93, Rockson Engineering Company Limited-$16,007,450.00, North China Electric Power-$20,373,889.99, Hoquado Limited-$7,966,290.40, Pivot/Kalapataru-$4,045,507.36, Pivot Engineering Limited-$108,939.98.

Those paid in Euro were: North China Electric Power-EU519,326.36, Matelec-EU11,095,058.08, Nigeria Management Group- EU6,47l,558.29, Selta S.p.A.-EU620,367.28,Pivot Engineering-EU620,367.28.

Engr. Joseph Makoju, former Managing Director of PHCN, Special Adviser to the President on Power at the time of the investigation who served as Managing Director of NEPA, later PHCN from 2000 to July 2006 and was also a member of the Technical Board chaired by the then Minister of Power and Steel, Senator Liyel Imoke was confronted with some damning allegations, particularly relating to huge spending on procurement, especially transformers, without consuming existing inventories of transformers and spare parts in PHCN stores. Speaking in general terms, he admitted that there were some cases of mismanagement and bad eggs in the marketing interface. He agreed that a lot of money went into power and accepted a share of responsibility for what happened but insisted that provision of electric power was quite costly anywhere in the world.

Alhaji Ibrahim Dankwambo, the then Accountant-General of the Federation gave the summary of disbursements from his office to power sector institutions from 1999 to 2007. He gave details in terms of amounts approved/released in warrant/cash backed year by year from 1999-2007. According to him, the budgetary allocation released to the Power Sector from 1999 to 2007 was N435, 115,676,963 equivalent of $3,718,937,409. 94.

The last official to appear before the Committee was Mrs. Nenadi Usman, former Minister of Finance who appeared before the Committee on Monday, 12th May, 2008.On the amount spent on power sector within the period under investigation, the former Minister said that to the best of her knowledge, the figure stood at about $3.2 billion just before she left office on 29th May, 2007. On the amount spent on NIPP during her tenure, from June 22, 2006 to 28/May 2008, she said that it was about $1.2 billion. On the reason for paying 25 per cent mobilization when site of a project was not yet located and also why some NIPP contractors were paid 50 per cent, some 80 per cent and some 100 per cent or more, she said she was not part of the negotiation. She suggested that it might depend on the negotiating power of the various contractors but that only Senator Liyel Imoke could answer that question.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar was then the Chairman of the Implementation Committee on Emergency Power Projects set up by the President in 2004 to take emergency steps to improve the power situation in Nigeria, revealed that the Ministerial Steering Committee, chaired by the then Minister of Power and Steel, Senator Liyel Imoke, was assigned to work under and to report to the Presidential Implementation Committee.

In his written submission, the former Vice President claimed that the Implementation Committee ceased to function after only two meetings. According to him, “In these two meetings, the Implementation Committee did not receive any report from the Steering Committee, nor was it invited to approve any projects.”

“The Steering Committee which was set up to prepare the ground for the actualisation of the objectives of the NIPP by the Implementation Committee continued to function even after it completed its assignment by coming out with a blue print on the concept; the cost and location of the power projects. The Steering Committee went on briefing the President and receiving funding from him without reference to the Implementation Committee. Applications were made directly by the Minister to the President and/or through the Minister of Finance.”
The investigation revealed large scale failure on the part of important institutions of state, particularly the former Federal Ministry of Power and Steel (now Federal Ministry of Energy (Power)), the National Council on Privatization (NCP) and strategic role occupants such as the Minister of Power and Steel at that time as well as high officials in the PHCN to perform their constitutional duties that would have resulted in improved electric power for Nigerians.

From all available evidence, the strategic plan for transforming the electric power sector envisaged in the EPSRA, 2005, has not been faithfully prosecuted or diligently implemented. The investigation revealed widespread and flagrant abuse of legal process, resulting in avoidable waste, continued power failure and inestimable human suffering on the part of the Nigerian masses.

Unfortunately, all NIPP payments were made without following Due Process. In its place, a process called “Waiver of Due Process Certification for Payment” was adopted in flagrant disregard of Due Process Policy, thus paving way for dubious and highly risky payments to contractors and consultants by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Some key examples are worthy of note: Over N58.8 billion (more than 100%) up-front payment to SEPCO III in respect of Papa Lanto Phase II (conversion to combined cycle) project, without following due process in the award of the contract; Over =N=14 billion up-front payment to CMEC in respect of Omotosho; Payment of more than 100 per cent of total contract sums to Marubeni (aggregate of over USD350 million) in respect of Calabar, Sapele and Eyaen power plants; Payment of over 80 per cent of total contract sums to Rockson International in respect of Omoku, Egbema, Gbarain-Ubie and Alaoji Phase I.

Pundits believed that developments in the upcoming months would prove whether the Acting President is ready to comply by the Committee's Report recommendation which stated in part that, “In view of the huge amounts involved, the Committee recommends that the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) should investigate the allegations with a view to prosecuting anyone found culpable”.

Source: http://nationaldailyngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1109:power-project-probe-how-obasanjo-imoke-others-wasted-n25tr&catid=99:current-cover&Itemid=489

kosovo:
IBB's records speaks for itself, you don't need a prophet to tell you what he did, His experience on leadership can't be matched . . .
I am currently too lazy to start typing all his records. . . Though some bad one's. . . but u know, there is no administration in the world where you won't see a bad side. . . such is Life . . . .

Your response is really pathetic and laughable! Well, if his records speak so well why has he had to hire every soul-less robots he can find to speak for him in all kinds of media? Okay seriously, you cannot be lazy in reeling-off his 'many' achievements as we really need to know so we can vote for / against him accordingly. . .except of course, he is waiting to buy the entire election?

When Obama was contesting for the presidency, was it not nice and really interesting to see him made to answer very tough questions? Same applied to Clinton and other contestants! They did not just have to answer tough questions making empty promises, they also had to LAY OUT HOW they will achieve their goal? They had to defend their voting records in the senate, tell us about their world view, where the funding for their agenda in government will come from. . .all these BEFORE the election. It is NOT the one where buffoons want to get to power before deciding what they want to do!

he still wants to be president! Why?

Kosovo, can you get back to us on this issue. . .since you are the NL contact for IBB?

I and many like me want to know!

Having endured a 14-hour coach trip, FC Barcelona face another test of stamina against an FC Internazionale Milano side deemed "much stronger" than earlier this term by coach José Mourinho.

FC Internazionale Milano coach José Mourinho believes his side are "much stronger" now than when they faced FC Barcelona in the group stage as the two teams prepare to meet again in the UEFA Champions League semi-finals. While Mourinho was happy for Barcelona to be considered favourites ahead of Tuesday's first leg at San Siro, his opposite number Josep Guardiola was concerned too much expectation was being placed on the holders, particularly after a gruelling 14-hour bus drive to Milan.

José Mourinho, Inter coach
"Barça deserved to win in November. They are as strong now as they were then, but we are much stronger". I don't mind if the football world considers them favourites, I think we have a 50% chance of playing in the final. What I do not like is to talk about this game as if it were a final; the real final will be played in Madrid. Lyon and Bayern have the same chances of winning the trophy as Barcelona and Inter have.

Everybody talks about Messi, but football is not an individual sport, though of course he is a player who deserves special attention. I worked with Puyol ten years ago, but he seems to be the same player. He looks like a 21-year-old, not a 30-year-old. Success has not changed him and that's the best thing for a player.

Josep Guardiola, Barcelona coach
It's not just us playing; Inter are as well. They have been Italian champions for four years in a row. It is not the ideal situation for us to travel 14 hours by coach after a league game and before a semi-final against Inter, but you cannot stop a volcano, can you? We decided to use two busses to have more space and I didn't travel with the players because I think it's better for them not to always have their coach with them. "Luckily Inter eliminated CSKA so we haven't had to go to Moscow by bus"!

I don't want to think about the league; we are in a Champions League semi-final for the third time in a row and I want to savour it. [Saturday's 0-0 draw at] Espanyol is history. Inter can play in a variety of ways. They have versatile players who do whatever their coach asks. I have no idea which Inter to expect. We want to be ourselves – we have to.

Team news
Inter
Out: Davide Santon (knee), Francesco Toldo (leg)
Doubtful: none
Suspended: none
Misses next match if booked: Walter Samuel, Maicon, Javier Zanetti, Dejan Stanković

• Santon is out until the end of the month after knee surgery.

Barcelona
Out: Andrés Iniesta(right thigh)
Doubtful: none
Suspended: none
Misses next match if booked: Carles Puyol
• Zlatan Ibrahimović returned from a calf problem to face RCD Espanyol on Saturday and Eric Abidal has recovered from a groin tear.

Weekend results
16/04/10 Inter 2-0 Juventus
(Maicon 75, Eto'o 90+2)

• Juve were reduced to ten men in the first half, but it took until the last 15 minutes for Inter to secure victory in Mourinho's 100th game in charge and Zanetti's 500th Serie A appearance for the club.

• AS Roma beat S.S. Lazio 2-1 on Sunday to regain top spot in Serie A and leave Inter a point adrift with four games remaining.

17/04/10 RCD Espanyol 0-0 Barcelona

• Barcelona's Liga lead over Real Madrid CF was reduced to one point after they had Daniel Alves sent off in a draw at the home of their city neighbours.

• It was only the second time that Barcelona failed to score in the league this season.

Background
• In Inter's first semi-final since 2002/03, they meet familiar opponents from the group stage. The two sides drew 0-0 at San Siro on 16 September and Barcelona won 2-0 at home on 24 November, Gerard Piqué and Pedro Rodríguez getting the goals.

• These teams' other San Siro meeting, in the 2002/03 second group stage, also ended goalless. Zanetti, Puyol and Xavi Hernández all played in that game.

• Inter are yet to score against Barcelona in four competitive matches.

Team Ties
• Mourinho served as an assistant to the late Sir Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal at Barcelona from 1996 to 2000.

• Inter forward Diego Milito, 30, could line up against his 29-year-old brother Gabriel of Barcelona. The Argentinian international siblings played together for two seasons with Real Zaragoza between 2005 and 2007.

Did you know?
• Inter are unbeaten at San Siro in this season's competition and have never lost in seven European Champion Clubs' Cup semi-final home legs.

Source: http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/matches/season=2010/round=2000031/match=2000487/prematch/preview/index.html

Just had to make a quick comment: Where are the IBB robots to tell us about what makes their benefactor a candidate for the highest office in Nigeria? I am hoping all the lobotomy he performed on you has not been wasted? (See there are 4 posters, 1 for IBB / 49 views ~ 2%, which would not be enough to get him into office. . .so speak now!)

It is a common saying in Nigeria that if a fish spouts from the river, we know how much its worth is and that if someone did not thread the path of lies, he is not likely to be accused. These sayings are very apt for General Babangida’s challenge to us, ordinary mortals to prove that he is a thief; rather he should prove that he is not a thief. The General who is warming up for a presidential contest in 2011 should also, for the sake of the office he is aspiring to, tell us why he should not be regarded as anti democracy and in addition, he should clear the air on all other unresolved mysteries that are woven around him and the government he once headed.

General Muhammadu Buhari is an ex- head of State, and he served as Chairman of PTF long after he had retired, today he is standing tall, his integrity is intact and he is highly respected in all parts of Nigeria and outside the shores of Nigeria. He had contested the presidential elections twice and still making efforts for a third attempt, but nobody has accused him of being a thief.

We would be happy as potential voters if General Babangida can prove to Nigerians how he came about his lavishly furnished mansion in Minna, though I have not been there but the interior of the house is not hidden from many people who have images of its different segments in their mail boxes, and believe me, the aesthetics qualify for a Saudi Royalty mansion. We can concede it to the General that a lot of people must have benefitted from the government he headed through numerous contracts awarded especially through the conduit pipes of wastes like DIFRI and NDE directorates, among many others but we need facts surrounding these issues.

Another money spinning business of the time was the ECOMOG mission in war torn Liberia that looks in retrospect, to have been deliberately prolonged to keep the war contractors in business at the expense of the blood of our young patriotic soldiers. The war also claimed the lives of two Nigerian journalists in the hands of the rebels; Tayo Awotunsin and Krees Imodibe of Champion and Guardian Newspapers. It would have been naïve of the ex-military president not to expect that his actions would be subjected to proper scrutiny at one stage or another and there is no doubt that the callings of his profession demand that they should be men of honour and integrity even though this was grossly compromised during the General’s era.

General Babangida should now come out in the open by publishing detailed responses to each and every allegation of wrong doing and issues that are shrouded in secrecy by shedding light on them. The General should even “rubbish” us all by going ahead to swear on Oath that all he would say are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and ask God to help him.

SaharaReporters.com once splashed images of his flamboyant family vacation in France on its website; granted that it is not out of place for a retired public officer of his status to be able to afford such a family vacation; but the General was also rumoured to be fond of travelling in private jets. Does he own a jet? If the answer is yes, we need to know the businesses he had engaged in since retirement. Did he win a lottery with heavy rewards? Granted that his numerous friends in the business community may have given him a blanket authorization to use their jets any time the need arises; we need to know who these benefactors are. And it should not be difficult for friends of the General to grant him the permission to expose their identities to help his presidential aspirations since they will continue to be major beneficiaries if he is elected the president of the federal republic of Nigeria.

Another issue that has refused to die is the death of Dele Giwa. Once again, let us absolve the General and his security agents of any culpability. In return for that, let the General tell us after he must have consulted with the individuals regarded as suspects in Giwa’s murder, why was the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi had to be hounded and persecuted so much simply for his innocent pursuit of what he believed was a murder committed by people in authority? Why did the General not use his executive powers to direct the suspects to appear in courts as he did in directing a review of Fela Anikulapo’s conviction when the ‘Abami Eda’ revealed that the judge that convicted him had begged him? Did the government fear that the suspects could cave in during cross examinations?

Now that the General has stirred the hornet’s nest, he should also tell us whether the Gloria Okon saga was a myth, a mirage, a reality or blackmail. General Babangida should swear on Oath that he and any member of his family never had anything to do with Gloria Okon. He should tell us whether it was MKO Abiola himself that told him to annul the elections he won because he had been reported in the past to have said that when he opens up on June 12, Nigerians would be shocked. When is the opportune time more than now that it would put him in a vantage position for his comeback attempts? How about his latest indictment among other indicted highly placed individuals by the US authorities concerning Halliburton bribery scandal? All those indicted are very fortunate to be ‘eminent’ Nigerians; had they not come from this freakish country like ours, they would have been guests of EFCC, but alas! It is a country where high profile kleptomaniacs get court’s protection from arrests whereas a goat thief easily gets 18 years prison term.

As a military president, our dear General availed us the opportunity of understanding the two extremes; that a free and fair election is possible but that it is extremely dangerous to have it supervised by sophistry demagogues hence our insistence that from now on, only people of unblemished character whose patriotic blood course their veins should come forward to lead us. It may not also be out of place to assume that we may have ‘grossly misunderstood’ General Babangida because he has not spoken about all manners of allegations making rounds about his person.

Should the general therefore come out in black and white and reinforce his ‘innocence’ by swearing on Oath about every point of rebuttal , then we shall be glad to have him as one of the candidates and our next modest demand would only be for free and fair elections like the one he conducted and annulled in 1993.

The Nigeria electorate are very fair minded people; when the election results are announced, I am sure Nigerians will hand the General a verdict of ‘guilty as suspected’ by his assured resounding defeat at the polls.

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chinedu said:
chinedu
,
"that the burden of proof is on he who alledges" please we have had to contend with all the allegations yet he was in USA and no one brought any charges. We all brag about Abuja yet we all forget that it took that brave General to realize what would have been another elusive dream. sixteen years after no government both state and federal can boast of a capital well planned, even with bigger budgets. sahara what about lagos? Has anyone added a new bridge the size of third mainland? you criticize his policy please which government has ever come up with the blue print to move nigeria forward? Please if you must criticize be objective. Mixing truth with lies taints its purity thereby destroying its substance. Alot it does not help the struggle to fight good battles in a wrong way. Respect our General a product of our fine military.

Source: http://www.saharareporters.com/articles/external-contrib/5859-general-prove-that-you-are-not-a-thief.html

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Interesting to see the comment by some dimwit about IBB. . .with people like this bought with some chicken change, any wonder his kids and grandchildren (including most stuck in Nigeria) will take any offer to marry for papers in a foreign country or attempt escaping Nigeria in the tyres of a plane??

This is in FACT a VERY GOOD IDEA that should be in "Here's How To Move Nigeria Forward" on Nairaland! I heard sometime that NL is a private venture so I don't think NL as an organization will NOT be interested in something that does not necessarily add to their bottom line!

However, if NL was even able to put together a decent formal letter, we could all sign it and use that to make a case with major TV stations (not NTA), presenters that matter and are not corrupt, the Save Nigeria Group and all the NGOs who are all championing democracy in Nigeria! Imagine making this such a big issue NOW before the election period hots-up and it will be that fewer dim bulbs will be elected as president or any other major office in Nigeria!

YES! The policeman (Obasanjo) is as much a thief as the vagabonds listed in that list, some who he pursued with his anti-corruption campaign! Well, they were corrupt after all and deserved it and hope his time comes soon for prosecution as well as those who have 'escaped' so far!

However, THE BIG SUPER THIEF OF DELTA STATE, JAMES IBORI. . .is as complicit and guilty in destroying Nigeria with monumental thievery, lootery and corruption! By having his newspaper publish this list will not shift attention away from him! The prying eyes of Nigerians will follow him until he is completely destroyed at the gallows! Thief! Ole! Ole!!

So, Yaraodunkun saw the list since last year and made sure it was not released? HAHAHA. . .protecting thieves and corrupt vagabond president is still a thief. . .he is as guilty! Meanwhile he kept mouthing 7-point non-agenda, barking some ludicrous fight against corruption while Turaya, the AGF and Ibori were pulling the strings of the dummy president! To complete the cover-up he was dashing to major and minor hajj every few weeks! Anyways, I am not sure any prayers can be made in a vegetative state. . .but if possible, he may yet have a chance of escaping residency in the HOTTEST part of HELL!

How much is this poll worth in dollars??