₦airaland Forum

ACN, CNPP blast PDP for celebrating Bode George’s release

By Olusola Fabiyi and Mudiaga Affe

Monday, 28 Feb 2011

The Action Congress of Nigeria and the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties on Sunday warned the Peoples Democratic Party not to send wrong signals to Nigerian youths that there were good rewards for corruption.


The ACN’s warning came on the heels of Saturday’s grand reception organised by the PDP for its former Deputy National Chairman (South), Chief Olabode George, on his release from a two-year jail term.


George was jailed for abuse of office, contract splitting and disobedience to lawful order.


In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the ACN said the PDP‘s action was a wrong signal to Nigerian youths. The ACN said it was akin to telling Nigerian youths that public officers could steal or mismanage public funds and be treated like heros.


“There is nothing wrong in rehabilitating a prisoner. But turning an occasion that calls for penitence and soberness to a carnival of sorts is a disservice to Nigeria, and a clear signal that the wobbly anti-corruption war of the Goodluck Jonathan administration is finally dead. It also ridicules Nigeria in the eyes of the world,” it said.


The ACN said George was jailed for stealing money meant for port management and development, not for his political beliefs.


“Let us remind Nigerians that partly because of Bode George‘s grand larceny, it now takes five times the number of time it should take to clear a container; while the Apapa port can hardly handle some ocean-growing vessels bringing in imported fuel, thus heightening the possibility of fuel scarcity.


“This is the man for whom a party (PDP) seeking the votes of Nigerians in April‘s general elections pulled all the stops to give a hero‘s welcome from Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison. This is the man whom serving ministers of a government that is supposed to be fighting corruption besieged Lagos to welcome.


“This is the man for whom the President‘s campaign coordinator for the South-West, Governor Gbenga Daniel - apparently standing in for his boss – turned up in Lagos with fanfare to receive. Nowhere in the world is this kind of action possible, except in Nigeria. And no party is capable of this theatre of the absurd except the PDP,” the party said.


In a separate statement, the CNPP expressed surprise at the celebration of George’s release from jail. In the statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, the CNPP said it was outraged over “the obscene celebration of George, an ex-convict in Lagos on Saturday, by eminent citizens among whom were former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Governor Gbenga Daniel (Ogun State), ex-governors and two serving ministers.”


The CNPP said it was at a loss on where to locate the Jonathan administration’s anti-graft crusade when the President delegated the Minister of Defence, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, to represent him at the ‘obscene’ celebration.


CNPP said, ”President Jonathan from all intents and purposes by this act has failed woefully to defend the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a constitution which frowns against corruption, failed to show leadership and questioned the sincerity of his commitment to war against corruption.


“Accordingly, we are appalled that the president of our dear country can openly, without prejudice to his oath of office, celebrate a man who was convicted on a 163-count criminal charge bearing on abuse of public trust, contract splitting and financial misappropriation to the tune of N100bn. What lessons or legacies are we bequeathing to future generations, when we are celebrating a man from prison not for political charges but criminal charges?”

http://punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201102281592315

Anger, Shock Greet Lavish Reception For Bode George

First Lady Visits Residence & Thanks God for Bode George

HeadlinesFeb 28, 2011

By EMMANUEL AZIKEN, CLIFFORD NDUJIHE, VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG, OLASUNKANMI AKONI, ABDULWAHAB ABDULLAH, GODWIN ORITSE & CHRIS OCHAYI

LAGOS — OPPOSITION political parties and organised Labour, yesterday, descended heavily on the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, describing weekend’s celebration of the release from jail of Chief Bode George as a celebration of shame and corruption.
While the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari described the celebrations as a demonstration of the immunity of PDP to shame, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, said the celebrations portrayed the PDP as a party that was disposed to corruption, greed and larceny.
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu who, as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, led investigations into the affairs of George as Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, described it as a national shame that the PDP would be celebrating a man that they distanced themselves from.
The celebrations were also flayed by lawyers including Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, and the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, which through its Vice President Comrade Issa Aremu, said the celebrations showed that Nigeria had much to do in the fight against corruption.
The Lagos State chapter of the PDP, however, came out strongly in support of the orchestrated celebrations that followed the release of the erstwhile National Deputy Chairman of the party saying that the ACN was envious of their leader’s victory “over their planned evil machinations.” The PDP insisted that George, a former Naval General was sent to jail on political considerations.
Jailed for contract splitting
George was sent to jail in 2009 by a Lagos High Court on charges of contract splitting, abuse of office and award of about N100bn contracts without due process.
George and his fellow ex-convicts were released from prison last Saturday at the expiration of their two-year term.
He was particularly welcomed in a boisterous celebration that was only tempered by a thanksgiving service where the presiding priest urged him to reflect on his life.
Responding to the celebrations, Buhari, speaking through his spokesman, Yinka Odumakin, said the PDP has destroyed the moral values of the country even as he condemned former President Olusegun Obasanjo for attending the celebrations.
He said: “The reception is shameful and condemnable. It shows that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its leadership are immune to shame, that is why they will roll out drums for an ex-convict like Bode George.
“It is only in this clime that this kind of thing happens. If a former President, who claimed to be fighting corruption will go to receive a convicted felon, it shows that the PDP and its leaders have perverted values. They have destroyed our moral values.
If we don’t stop PDP at the polls, our children will not know the right from the wrong and the poor will continue to suffer. It is condemnable, Nigerians must rise to stop the PDP.”
Ribadu who described it as a shameful thing that the PDP would be celebrating instead of hiding its head in shame, said: “It is really a shameful thing that has happened. Instead of hiding their heads in shame they have the effrontery to celebrate corruption, infact it is a national shame.”
The ACN reacting through its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said: “PDP’s action sends a wrong signal to Nigerian youths that it is alright to steal or mismanage public funds, since it can even turn them into a ‘hero’ like Bode George.
There is nothing wrong in rehabilitating a prisoner. But turning an occasion that calls for penitence and soberness to a carnival of sorts is a disservice to Nigeria, and a clear signal that the wobbly anti-corruption war of the Goodluck Jonathan administration is finally dead. It also ridicules Nigeria in the eyes of the world.”’
ACN’s contention
ACN contended that for the avoidance of doubt, Bode George was jailed for stealing money meant for port management and development, not for his political belief even though some clowns are now comparing him to Obafemi Awolowo or Nelson Mandela.
“Let us remind Nigerians that partly because of Bode George’s grand larceny, it now takes five times the number of time it should take to clear a container; while the Apapa port can hardly handle some ocean-going vessels bringing in imported fuel, thus heightening the possibility of fuel scarcity.
This is the man for whom a party (PDP) seeking the votes of Nigerians in April’s general elections pulled all the stops to give a hero’s welcome from Kirikiri Maximum Prison. This is the man whom serving ministers of a government that is supposed to be fighting corruption besieged Lagos to welcome.”
Celebrating grand larceny
In the meantime, the party said, Nigerians should send a clear message to the PDP  – through their votes in April – that today’s Nigeria will not have a place for a party that celebrates grand larceny, corruption, greed and wastage of public funds.
According to Igbokwe, Bode George and his PDP cannot change, “they continue to mock Nigerians, they continue to insult our collective intelligence, they continue to tell us that impunity is no crime, they continue to make Nigeria a laughing stock in the comity of nations, they continue to disgrace the beautiful people of Nigeria, they continue to provoke Nigerians without remorse, they continue to tell us that they own Nigeria.
The NLC reacting through its Vice President, Comrade Issa Aremu said: “It shows that we still have much work to be done on anti-corruption. Yes, everybody cherishes freedom. But what is needed here is sober reflection. The family and others celebrating his freedom should ask, why was he jailed in the first place.
He was jailed for abuse of public office, for corruption, this is certainly what we should be proud of and be celebrating. He is not Nelson Mandela who went to jail because of he was fighting to liberate his people. I think those that are celebrating his freedom should play back the sermon of the priest at his church service and a thorough sober reflection.”
“There is nothing worthy of celebration about the reason for which he was sent to jail. We can forgive, but we cannot forget why he was jailed. We should not forget that there is a linkage between corruption for which has was jailed and poor road networks, with lack of electricity, with failing standard of education, with lack of infrastructures in our health institutions and schools.
We should not forget that this linkage between corruption and unemployment, lack of social amenities and so. There is linkage between corruption and crimes that have been plaguing our society. The ongoing celebration of the freedom of Bode George means that those saddled with anti-corruption fight, definitely have a lot of work to do. It is very sad and unfortunate that instead of going to repent, like the Priest told him, he is celebrating.”
Sending a bad message
On his part, President-General of Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, Comrade Peter Esele, said “it is sending a bad message that it pays to be corrupt. It is sending a wrong signal to the nation’s youths that corruption pays. We are also sending a very wrong signal to the international community about our anti-corruption fight.
It is only in Nigeria that somebody who was jailed for corruption should be celebrated. No mater how you look at it, it is bad for our moral, bad for us a nation. It is very sad. Could you believe the former President who set up the agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, that diligently jailed, Chief George, attended the church service? Among those that were at the church service were those are leading us and are preaching against corruption.
It is now very clear that most of those preaching anti-corruption are just being deceitful.”
Lagos based lawyer and rights activist, Mr Bamidele Aturu described the partying and wearing of uniform by the party supporters as something “portraying Nigerians as celebrating corruption, which is very unfortunate.”
Coming out of prison
Aturu said: “My view is that there is nothing at all wrong with somebody celebrating or thanking God for coming out of the prison safely.
I have been there, I know what it means for somebody to come out of Nigeria prison safely. However, we must show a level of humility and sobriety. For him to thank God for his life, its is a worthy celebration. The manner by which the programme was organised is not good for our country.”
The PDP was, however, defiant saying the ACN was envious that their leader had regained his freedom. Reacting through its secretary, Captain Tunji Shele the PDP said “the ACN is envying the victory of our leader over their planned evil machinations and their ally.”
According to him, apart from the fact that Chief Bode George went to prison and came out alive, “it is our belief that he did not commit any offence to warrant sending him to jail at all. He was never adjudged to have stolen any money.
His offence was a misdeamenor, that is, he was said to have disobeyed a constituted authority, an offence which should attracted probably a fine. So, we felt he was being prosecuted and persecuted. Apart from this, I must tell you, the conspirators thought that the election will hold in January, they clandestinely ensured that his sentence fell within January, when they hoped the electioneering process must have been completed. But things changed, I know, Chief Bode George is an important figure in the PDP in Lagos, the south-west and in Nigerian in general.”
You can see the number of the party leaders and those who are not partisan that attended his thanksgiving yesterday. This is a testimony that they trust him and believe in his good character. So, what they are saying is unjustifiable and it is an arrant nonsense.”
Meanwhile, the first lady, Mrs Goodluck Jonathan joined other dignitaries to welcome Chief George back home yesterday. The first lady who visited the politician in his Luggard residence thanked God for him and wished him and his family well.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/02/anger-shock-greet-lavish-reception-for-bode-george/

CNPP knocks Jonathan over Bode George

Written by Christian Okeke

Monday, 28 February 2011

Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), on Sunday, said that it was against best ethical tradition for President Goodluck Jonathan to have delegated the Minister of Defence, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, to represent him at the event celebrating the release of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Chief Bode George,from prison.

The group in a statement signed by its national publicity secretary, Osita Okechukwu, maintained that it was at a loss where to locate President Jonathan’s much publicised zero tolerance for corruption and in fact, his anti-graft crusade by his decision to send a representative to the event which it described as an obscene celebration.

According to CNPP, President Jonathan, from all intents and purposes, by the act failed woefully to defend the constitution which the group observed frowns at corruption.

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/18142-cnpp-knocks-jonathan-over-bode-george

ACN slams PDP for celebrating Bode George’s release


Written by Adewale Ajayi

Monday, 28 February 2011

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has slammed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for celebrating shame and corruption by rolling out the drums to welcome Chief Bode George, who was jailed for corruption.

The party in a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the PDP’s action sent a wrong signal to Nigerian youths that it was alright to steal or mismanage public funds, since it could even turn them into a ‘hero’ like Bode George.

“There is nothing wrong in rehabilitating a prisoner. But turning an occasion that calls for penitence and soberness to a carnival of sorts is a disservice to Nigeria, and a clear signal that the wobbly anti-corruption war of the Goodluck Jonathan administration is finally dead. It also ridicules Nigeria in the eyes of the world,” ACN said.

The party stated that for the avoidance of doubt, Bode George was jailed for stealing money meant for port management and development, not for his political belief even though some clowns were now comparing him to Chief Obafemi Awolowo or Nelson Mandela.

“Let us remind Nigerians that partly because of Bode George’s grand larceny, it now takes five times the number of time it should take to clear a container; while the Apapa port can hardly handle some ocean-growing vessels bringing in imported fuel, thus heightening the possibility of fuel scarcity.

“This is the man for whom a party (PDP) seeking the votes of Nigerians in April’s general election pulled all the stops to give a hero’s welcome from Kirikiri Maximum Prison.”

This is the man whom serving ministers of a government that is supposed to be fighting corruption besieged Lagos to welcome. This is the man for whom the president’s campaign coordinator for the South-west, Governor Gbenga Daniel - apparently standing in for his boss - turned up in Lagos with fanfare to receive. Nowhere in the world is this kind of action possible, except in Nigeria. And no party is capable of this theatre of the absurd except the PDP,” the party said.

ACN said the only ray of hope in all the misplaced celebration of George’s release was the courageous admonition of the priest who presided at the thanksgiving church service for the freed prisoner.

“Point blank, this priest condemned the political rally atmosphere and the non-stop drumming right in the church premises,reminded the exuberant politicians and their supporters that they were in the presence of God and condemned the loss of moral values that made this possible.

“Then he advised Bode George to be penitent and sober, eschew arrogance and avoid being party to any shady deal or election rigging. Reminding the ‘celebrant’ that not even political, economic or military power which he possessed could prevent him from going to jail, the priest, who said he was in secondary school when Bode George was the military governor of his (Pastor’s) home state of Ondo, told him that real power belongs only to God,’’ the party said.

ACN expressed the hope that George and his backers in high places who today believed they had the licence to inflict untold hardship on hapless Nigerians through bad governance would learn from the admonition of that young but superbly courageous pastor.

In the meantime, the party said Nigerians should send a clear message to the PDP - through their votes in April - that today’s Nigeria wouold not have a place for a party that celebrates grand larceny, corruption, greed and wastage of public funds.

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/18148-acn-slams-pdp-for-celebrating-bode-georges-release

President’s Power Adviser: IPPs could end up as white elephants

Friday, 25 February 2011 00:00 Abdul-Rahman Abubakar

Repeated promises by the Jonathan Administration to improve this country’s epileptic power supply situation may come to naught because no funds have been provided in the 2011 Federal budget to build the pipelines that must deliver gas to the seven thermal stations of the National Integrated Power Projects [NIPPs], the Joint National Assembly Committee on Gas was told yesterday.

Briefing the Joint Committee in Abuja, a government delegation led by Presidential Adviser on Power Professor Barth Nnaji said the failure of government to provide any part of the N750 billion needed to build the gas pipeline projects to deliver gas to the NIPPs threatens to turn them into white elephant projects.
Nnaji said without the pipelines to deliver gas to power the stations, the much needed improvement in power generation in the country would not be realised. He said, “For power to reach the 40,000 megawatts projection by the year 2020, there is need for rapid growth of 3,000 megawatts annually, which could drop to about 1,500 megawatts annually after 2020. If we don’t build the gas link to the thermal stations, I think there will be a problem. The gas pipelines are critical to the power projects.”

Nnaji also said the power projects cannot be put to use without the gas pipelines. He said, “There is need for appropriation funding and third party funding. Something has to be done and quick to ensure that there is no delay on the part of the NNPC in completing this project.”

He said improvement in the energy sector is critical to the attainment of government’s Vision 20:2020. “Beginning from this year, government will reduce investment in power generation and distribution. Government will increase investment in transmission of power and gas,” the adviser said.

Explaining the cause of the zero budgetary allocation to the gas pipeline projects, Director General of the Federal Budget Office Dr. Bright Okogwu said government alone cannot fund the projects as it requires the participation of third parties. He said, “One of the things plaguing this particular area is that investment in the sector is not robust due to insufficient funding. People are not paying enough to the PHCN per kilowatt of energy consumed. Instead of about N42 per kilowatt, people are paying about N6 to N7 per kilowatt of power.”

Okogwu said though the gas pipeline projects are critical to the vision 2020, government must prioritise its responsibility in the budgetary process. He said, “From our interaction with people in the sector, we agree that there is need for third party funding as well as first line budgetary funding.”

He however did not give details of how to source the private sector funds for the project, saying “We have provided N195 billion in the 2011 budget for domestic gas projects.”

Expressing concern on the situation, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Gas Mr. Igor Aguma said it is inappropriate to build power stations without the gas to power them. “That cannot improve the power situation in the country,” he said.

On his part, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Gas Senator Osita Izunaso said the four year project requires about N155 billion in the 2011 budget, which has not been provided.

http://dailytrust.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12862:presidents-power-adviser-ipps-could-end-up-as-white-elephants&catid=2:lead-stories&Itemid=8

‘Okah threatened, abused Jonathan, ministers from jail’

By Agency Reporter

Friday, 25 Feb 2011

detained leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, Mr. Henry Okah
South African police authorities on Wednesday said it had proof that the detained leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, Mr. Henry Okah, was constantly making phone calls from his cell to abuse and threaten President Goodluck Jonathan and other senior officials of government in Nigeria.


The police who raided Okah’s B-Max cell said they caught the detainee with eight phones from which they believed he was calling to verbally abuse and threaten the president with plans to further launch terror attacks in the country.


A map and other documents believed to constitute security threats were also found in Okah’s cell.


“In these phone calls, which we believe he made from the prepaid cell phones we seized, he is alleged to have verbally abused several senior Nigerian government officials, including the president.


“He is also believed to have told the president and his minister about further terror attacks MEND is believed to have been planning on carrying out,” Pretoria News quoted a senior official of the Department of Correctional Services to have said on Thursday.


Officials of the correctional services department raided Okah’s cell on Tuesday night.


But spokesman for Jonathan, Mr. Ima Niboro, on Thursday denied that Okah was calling to abuse and threaten the President.


“He did not call the President, and could not have reached him if he even tried. Please ignore the tale. It is just that, a tale!” Niboro wrote in a text to our correspondent who asked for the presidency’s response.


However, the correctional services official further said, “It is clear this man is powerful and extremely dangerous. Information in our possession indicates that he allegedly made several threatening phone calls to the Nigerian president.


“Also among the items seized was a detailed map of what is thought to be the court where he is to appear in April. We believe that this was to be used to aid him in a possible escape,”


The Nigerian Senate last week passed the Anti-Terror Act which prescribes death sentence for offenders.


Okah is currently in detention in South Africa where he is standing trial for terror attacks in Nigeria. He is believed to be the mastermind of the Independence Day twin bombings in the Federal Capital Territory.


About 12 people died in the attacks while members of MEND claimed responsibility.


The South African correctional services officers, after the raid, said they believed that Okah, whom they described as “powerful”, was still at the head of MEND and that he coordinated the activities of the organisation from his cell.


The spokesman for the South African police, McIntosh Polela, was quoted to have confirmed the raids on Okah’s cell and the shocking discoveries made.


Apart from the cell phones and the map, the other documents seized from Okah were said to contain phone numbers of Jonathan and his cabinet ministers.


Consequent upon the discoveries, there are indications on Thursday that the South African police are initiating the relocation of the MEND leader from the B-Max section of the prison, where he is currently held, to the A-Max, being the maximum security section of the prison.


Okah was arrested in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday, October 2, 2010, and charged to the court for terror activities. But he continued to deny links with the October 1 bombings in Abuja, few meters to the Eagle Square where Jonathan was hosting international guests to the celebration of Nigeria’s 50th independence anniversary.


While he has been battling for bail, Okah also continue to maintain that his ordeal is political and that it is because he has refuse to give his blessing for the 2011 presidential ambition of a fellow Ijaw man, Jonathan.


He once said, “As an Ijaw man, they believed I should support an Ijaw man automatically but I said no. This is a struggle and the struggle is not about me, it’s about millions of people.”


Okah, 43, was born in Ikorodu, Lagos State. He is an indigene of Bayelsa State. He holds a BSc in Marine Engineering. He is a licenced door-to-door gun salesman. He moved to South Africa, 2003; arrested in Angola, September 2007; deported to Nigeria, detained and charged with 62 counts including treason, terrorism and gun-running, offences carrying the death penalty.


The administration of late President Umaru Yar’Adua released him July 13, 2009 as part of the government’s amnesty programme.

http://punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20110225255489

Fashola calls for presidential debates

By Okechukwu Nnodim

February 25, 2011 02:12AM

The governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, on Thursday, called for presidential debates for aspiring candidates vying for the seat of the number one citizen of Nigeria.

Mr. Fashola, while speaking to reporters at the presidential wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, on his way back from a lecture titled: ‘Abundance of Possibilities for Nigeria', which he delivered at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, disclosed that higher institutions should partner with their respective communities in a bid to make democracy work better in the country.

"I am surprised that even as we speak, there is no information that there will be a presidential debate, and we are going to elect a president in the next few weeks. Now, democracy is always concerned only about whether a candidate has been picked by popular choice.

"Democracy does not assure us that that candidate knows what to do about security; it does not assure us that that candidate knows what to do about electricity, or indeed about transportation or healthcare. It is only processes built within the democratic process like debates that enables the public test the preparedness of the candidates, whether or not they are ready or they are even aware of what their problems are," Mr. Fashola said.

The governor disclosed that higher institutions of civilised nations organise debates to get the basic information of whether their choice candidate has the wherewithal to take the community to a better level.

"This is what is done by universities like Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, and others for prime ministerial, gubernatorial, and presidential elections in the two oldest democracies in the west. I didn't expect that we will be going to an election and at least there would not be a debate held in each of the six geopolitical zones; three for the vice presidential candidates, three for the presidential candidates in our institutions of higher learning. How much will it cost to organise that and televise it live?" He queried.

‘We need young leaders'

Mr. Fashola further called for young leaders in Nigeria, arguing that it is by this that the country will be able to efficiently tap from the knowledge of the youth.

"I think it is obvious now to everybody what young people can do. For the very first time, they entrusted youth corpers with the voter's registration exercise and so far so good.

"If we don't give this young people a chance, then are we truly really sure that this democracy is about them, are we really sincere that the future truly belongs to them? When 40-year olds are now leading nations and our 40-year olds can't even get to the Senate, they can't even become governors. Are we really preparing this generation for the future? Those are the issues really. We cannot point to success in other countries and refuse to do what those people are doing to get things right," he said.

Striking Doctors

The Lagos State governor called on doctors in the city to understand the constraints faced by the government, adding that the government has done its best by increasing the pay of the workers.

He, however, said he will continue to dialogue with the medical practitioners, as opposed to the demand for their sack by his predecessor, Bola Tinubu.

"I think the point is that we will continue to engage and appeal to them. This is not a war of who is superior; this is a war of rationality and reason, and we think that the point has been made. It is not a choice that we do not want to pay; it is the reality that we cannot afford to pay the full sum that they are asking for.

"After salaries, we have to buy drugs; after drugs, we have to power medical equipment and keep patients alive; after all of these, we have to pay security; we have to build roads; we have to build more schools; we have to provide water supply. These are all involved in this process and not everybody can really have everything that he wants.

"We have made a compromise, we have increased salaries, and once again, I appeal to them to see themselves as part of the solution rather being a problem," he said.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/Metro/Politics/5679965-146/story.csp

Written by Robin Urevich
Friday, 23 April 2010 11:27

In July 2004, police lay in wait at an airfield in the far northeastern corner of Nigeria. Gilbert Chagoury (www.gilbertchagoury.com/), 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.

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.
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