Its petty but at the end of the day its her blog

copying and pasting article word for word Really? Can't she at least paraphrase before publishing stories she found online? Ever had of article citation? APA, MLA,,,,blah blha

....and some idiot will still have to nerve to scream "witch-haunt on nairaland. ....and some idiot will still have to nerve to scream "witch-haunt on nairaland. ....and some idiot will still have to nerve to scream "witch-haunt on nairaland.

Some of Nigeria’s wealthiest industrialists, former government officials and their relatives, were amongst thousands of individuals around the world who operated highly secretive foreign accounts with the Swiss branch of banking giant, HSB​C, concealing their identities for years and using codes perhaps to shake off tax authorities from accounts, some of which held illicit assets from criminals, traffickers, arms dealers and other outlaws, secret files published last week by a consortium of journalists around the world have shown.

The trove, released by the French Daily, Le Monde and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, in partnership with PREMIUM TIMES, and a host of other major media organisations around the world, showed how HSBC profited doing business with people who stole from their countries and some of the world’s most notorious con artists, including people who made a fortune fuelling wars in Africa.

PREMIUM TIMES is the only Nigerian publication involved in the investigation, which lasted several months.

The bank helped questionable characters conceal their wealth despite knowing their sources, and devised ways to hide the identities of the owners of the secret accounts from governments around the world.

At least 100,000 secret bank account operators who owned about $100 billion were exposed in the leaks, unsettling investigators in several countries.

A Roll-call of Nigerian Clients

French authorities have so far linked 201 individual and corporate HSBC clients with Nigeria – either nationals or having business interests in the oil-rich West African country. However the sorting procedure might be faulty and some of those listed may end up having nothing to do with Nigeria.

Top on the list of Nigerians whose names appeared on the file is Africa’s richest industrialist, Aliko Dangote.

Another Nigerian businessman and owner of mobile telecom company, Globacom, Mike Adenuga, also appears on the files.

Vikky Preye Mark, estranged wife of Nigeria’s Senate President, David Mark, was also listed.

Many of the accounts date back to the 1990s and up to 2005/2006, when the data were stolen by a former staff of HSBC, Hervé Falcian.

According to details pieced together by the ICIJ, HSBC fashioned a series of layers of privacy schemes to ensure the worst of criminals and characters were protected.

The methods used were simple but had complex implications.

First, the account owner opens an account in his or her name, and the bank, in connivance with the customer, replaces the account holder’s name with a number code that is then given to the client.

At times, the clients are encouraged to incorporate offshore shell companies in notorious tax havens, which then indirectly hold the accounts on behalf of the real beneficial owners.

The bank repeatedly reassured clients it would not disclose details of the accounts to national authorities, even if evidence suggested that the accounts were undeclared to tax authorities in the client’s home country.

The code meant the client would no longer be tied to the account with his name, but in all transactions with the bank, he or she will be identified with the number.

But correspondences from the bank would be sent to the holder’s personal address. There was also an option for customers to ask the bank to withhold their mails. That practice was later discontinued.

The account holders were given the option of being contacted directly, or through proxies.

To access the account, there were options too. A client could do so from his home, whereby he will need to declare the account to tax authorities; or travel there in person, or do so through a courier who flies to Switzerland to collect cash from time to time.

Ultimately, the bank ensured the account details were kept secret and separate from the personal details of the holder.

That entire process allowed the bank’s clients hide from tax authorities and governments around the world, while criminals could hide stolen wealth.

Not all holders of the HSBC private accounts are however criminals, but there are concerns regarding why they chose a banking platform with emphasis on secrecy and concealed identities.

Very little of Mr. Dangote’s transactions with the bank were made available.

As head of a conglomerate operating in 16 African countries, including Nigeria, Mr. Dangote made his fortune producing salt, sugar, flour, cement and noodles. He has also expanded to real estate and oil.

Mr. Dangote is the president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

In November 2014, Forbes magazine ranked him the richest man in Africa and the 23rd in the world with an estimated fortune of $21.6 billion.

The mogul became an HSBC private account client in July 2003. The account appeared in the name of Development Projects Corporation, its registration address in Tortola the British Virgin Islands, a notorious tax haven, where individuals and corporations usually incorporate shell companies to hide assets. Mr. Dangote’s account was in operation till August 2004.

It is not clear to what use Mr. Dangote put the account and perhaps because he closed it long before the data were stolen, bank records did not indicate any balance on the account.

Globacom’s owner, Mr. Adenuga, had an account in his name tied to Sunbow Express Limited, a company based in Panama and for which HSBC described him as beneficial owner. The leaked file gave the company’s postal address as 86 West Green Road, GB-London N15 and c/o Arosemena Noriega-Contreras, Calle Elvira Mendez Street, 10 ED. DEL Barco Do Brasil P-Panama City, Panama.

Mr. Adenuga’s own address was given in bank documents as 37 York Terrace East GB-London NW1.

The businessman, who is among Africa’s richest personalities, opened the account on February 2, 1997 and it had a balance of $115, 405.00 as of 2006/2007 when the data were stolen.

Mr. Adenuga did not respond to ICIJ’s repeated requests for comment.

Mrs. Mark also operated an account with the bank but with details made largely secret. Although she was known within the bank as the beneficial owner of the account, she was largely identified with a secret code – 14312MP.

Mrs. Mark opened the account on December 18, 1989 and closed it July 12, 1991. About that time, her husband, then a top ranking army officer, had served as military administrator of Niger State and federal minister of communications, a period during which he is believed to have made a fortune.

He has been a senator since 1999 and President of the Nigerian Senate since 2007. Court papers during a messy divorce with his wife suggested that some of his children schooled in Switzerland, but it is not clear whether it was during that period that Mrs. Mark operated the HSBC account.

The court papers also showed that the Marks operated foreign accounts elsewhere. About six million pounds in four accounts – three at the Northern Bank, Isle of Man, and one at the Allied Irish Bank, Jersey – were frozen in October 2000 as a result of the ancillary relief sought by Victoria Mark in the couple’s divorce case. Mr. Mark’s operation of those accounts while a Senator is a violation of Nigerian law which bars public officials from operating foreign accounts while in office.

Nigeria’s former defence minister, Theophilus Danjuma, was also linked to HSBC account 15731CD, which was opened in 1993 and closed in 2001. The documents did not provide details regarding the balances in the account and the use to which Mr. Danjuma put it.

Mr. Danjuma has emerged one of Nigeria’s richest former public office holders through ownership of one of Nigeria’s most lucrative oil blocs and a lucrative shipping firm.

Another notable name on the leaked file is Adamu Wakili, Nigeria’s former Ambassador to the United States. Mr. Wakili was linked to account 17404B01, opened in 1991 and closed two years later. Mr. Wakili served as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development as well as that of Environment,

The list also has Aminu Jibril, former Senator, Minister and Ambassador. Mr. Jibril’s account has no details beyond his address, listed as Yola, former Gongola State.

Deribe Alhaji Mai, who also operates one of Nigeria’s richest oil blocs, was listed in the leaks. His details were not provided.

Peter Igbinedion Osawaru, was also named in the leaked file as the Director at Okada Air with an account code of 15418MP, opened in 1991 and closed in 1995.

Ibrahim Dasuki, a former Sultan of Sokoto who was deposed in 1996, was linked to account 15372HTNL, opened in 1991 and closed in 1993. The account coincided with when he was Sultan.

Another prominent Nigerian listed on the file as an HSBC client is Inuwa Wushishi, a retired General, former chief of army staff between 1981 and 1983 and former Board Chairman of UAC of Nigeria. Mr. Wushishi, 75, and his wife, Aishatu, were identified as beneficial owners of an account with code 6808AW. The couples opened the account on December 18, 1989 and closed it July 12, 1991. It remains unclear to what use they put the account.

Also on the list is Mohammed Hayatudeen, a former CEO of FSB International Bank and immediate past Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group – Nigeria leading economic think tank. Mr. Hayatudeen and his wife, Hafsatu, are listed beneficial owners of an account with secret code 15409MZH, opened on June 15, 1992 and closed on September 3, 1996. Apparently the entire balance in the account was cleared long before the leaked HSBC data was stolen.

There are lots of other Nigerian businesspersons listed in the file. They include Victor Ifeanyi Odili and his wife Ifeyinwa, who had a balance of $18,518.57 in their account as at 2005/2006 when the data was stolen; a Lagos-based merchant, Abdallah Taofik, who had a balance of $3,480,942.94; Akindele Labode Oladimeji ($23,979,105.76); Nankani Jairaj ($1,131,097.72) among others. (PREMIUM TIMES will release the full list of Nigerian clients in the days ahead.)

Files Sheds More Light on Nigeria’s Halliburton Bribery

The leaked file also opened a new window in the Halliburton bribery scandal involving Nigeria’s former leaders and the bribery surrounding the award of contracts for Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas plant.

The files reveal that Jefrey Tesler, the UK lawyer, who used a network of secretive banks and offshore tax havens to funnel $182 million in bribes to top Nigerian officials in exchange for a $6 billion contract to build Nigeria’s LNG, had financial ties to two former Nigerian officials: now-retired Major General Chris Garuba, chief of staff to former Nigerian president Abdulsalami Abubakar who himself allegedly received bribes as president; and Andrew Agom, a senior government official who was killed in an attack on a motorcade.

Records show bank staff responding to a request from Mr. Agom’s widow to unfreeze her husband’s account, whose post was sent to Tesler’s North London law firm and which was marked as subject to criminal investigations into Mr. Tesler. The files do not indicate whether or not the account was ultimately unfrozen.

Mr. Garuba, a former governor of Northeastern Bauchi state, is now chairman of Obekpa Petroleum, a Nigerian oil company. Before his death, Mr. Agom was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party, which which was in power for most of the period the bribery scheme unfolded.

Mr. Agom was the beneficial owner of an HSBC account linked to a Gibraltar-based company, Hemisphere Services Limited, which held a maximum amount of $797,377 at one point in 2006 or 2007. Africa Confidential magazine previously named a company named Hemisphere Services (Nigeria) as a “recipient of largesse” from Tesler after viewing documents disclosed to the magazine during a French corruption investigation.

Mr. Agom’s account was opened in 1991, on the same day that an account was opened in the name of former Nigerian Air Force Chief, Abdullahi Dominic Bello. A Nigerian government investigator has previously described Swiss accounts held by Mr. Bello as a conduit for “slush funds”. The investigator did not specifically mention HSBC.

A spokesman for Mr. Bello told ICIJ that the account, which was used for business purposes and opened by Mr. Tesler when he was Bello’s lawyer, had never been used for slush funds or bribes. “At no point has Mr. Bello been charged to any court over the bribery scandal,” said the spokesman, adding that, “it must be a coincidence that Mr. Agom and [Mr. Bello’s company] opened an account the same day.”

The leaked HSBC files identify Chris Garuba and his wife Rita as HSBC clients; their names are listed along with Tesler’s in an account named Bridlington Enterprises Limited, for which Mr. Tesler acted as an attorney. The files show that the account was opened the year before Mr. Tesler sent his first bribe payment to Switzerland, although the files do not show that Tesler transferred money into the Bridlington account, which held as much as $367,547 in 2006 or 2007.

The principal beneficial owner of that account is a certain Abu Shuaibu, a 65-year-old who effectively ran the account, repeatedly visiting HSBC in Switzerland, and making several withdrawals in cash. On one occasion – on November 11, 2005 – he visited the bank to request a transfer of 600,000 U.S. dollars. It is not clear to whom the money was sent.

PREMIUM TIMES and ICIJ have not been able to determine Mr. Shuaibu’s real identity. Chris and Rita Garuba, who should know, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

HSBC Apologises

Headquartered in London, HSBC has offices in 74 nations and territories on six continents.

The leaked account records show some clients making trips to Geneva to withdraw large wads of cash, sometimes in used notes. The files also document huge sums of money controlled by dealers in diamonds who are known to have operated in war zones and sold gemstones to finance insurgencies that caused untold deaths.

On Sunday, HSBC published a full-page advert containing an apology in several newspapers, over claims that its Swiss private bank helped clients evade tax.

The advert reproduced an open letter signed by chief executive Stuart Gulliver, which said recent coverage by the media had been “a painful experience”.

Mr. Gulliver, whose letter was addressed to the bank’s customers and staff, said in his letter that he wanted to reassure customers that its Swiss private bank had been “completely overhauled”.

“We have absolutely no appetite to do business with clients who are evading their taxes or who fail to meet our financial crime compliance standards,” he was quoted by the BBC as saying.

“The media focus has been on historical events that show the standards to which we operate today were not universally in place in our Swiss operations eight years ago.

“We must show we understand that the societies we serve expect more from us. We therefore offer our sincerest apologies.”

Mr. Gulliver also said that the recent media coverage about its clients and past misdeeds must be put “into context”.

“A former employee of the Swiss private bank stole data more than eight years ago.

“Major UK media outlets have focused on approximately 140 names included in the stolen data.

“Many of the people mentioned have been named simply because they are well-known individuals. The vast majority of these 140 people are no longer clients.

“The media has been mentioning a number of 100,000 clients. At its peak, the Swiss private bank had about 30,000 accounts.

“We have absolutely no appetite to do business with clients who are evading their taxes or who fail to meet our financial crime compliance standards.”

endorsing someone at a burial ceremony?[font=Lucida Sans Unicode][/font]

it's about finding the right balance

office of the main opposition party in the country, the All Progressives Congress, APC, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, has said.

All Progressives Congress data center
Mohammed further said the security men destroyed the party’s data base calling it an impunity carried too far and a scandal that can best be compared with the Watergate Scandal of the United States of America that led to the resignation of the country’s president, Richard Nixon in 1974.

A statement from him on Saturday afternoon, said the APC strongly condemns the invasion of its Lagos offices by security agents, adding that it was one of the worst political scandals in Nigeria’s history.

In the statement Mohammed issued in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, the APC said: “the invasion could only be likened to the Watergate Scandal that led to the resignation of US President Richard Nixon in 1974, as a result of the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the attempted cover-up of its involvement by the Republican Nixon administration.”

It therefore called for an independent inquiry to fish out those who ordered “the needless and unprovoked attack” on the offices of the APC and ensure that they face very serious consequences, irrespective of their status.

Inside APC data center after security agents left

“Saturday’s attack is another one in the string of attacks and illegal actions of the PDP-led administration. The attack was unwarranted and unjustifiable.

“To attack one of the offices of the opposition party, APC, where legitimate operations of the party were being undertaken is an act of fascism and totalitarianism. To the point of brigandage, the invasion of the APC centre is an assault on the APC and its entire membership across the country. It must not go unpunished,” the APC said


The party said though it had been tipped off about an impending attack on the ‘secret warehouse’ of its leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, “we dismissed such plan because there was no ‘secret warehouse’ anywhere and also because we never imagined that the government will attack the offices of an opposition party in a constitutional democracy.

“Obviously we under-estimated the desperation of the Jonathan Administration and its worsening proclivity to impunity.”

Giving details of the invasion, the APC said in the early hours of Saturday morning, a combined team of men of the DSS and OP-MESA stormed the Bola Ajibola Data centre belonging to the APC in the ikeja area of Lagos and arrested 25 APC data agents and three security guards.

“In what was a gestapo-like operation, the APC membership data centre located at Number 10, Bola Ajibola street, off Allen Avenue in Ikeja, came under siege between the hours of 5:30 am and 7:30 am on Saturday.

“An operation of terror and brigandage was unleashed on a legitimate operation of a leading national party. They came without a search warrant for the premises.

“Over 50 security operatives drafted from Abuja operations blocked the two major street entrances to the APC data entry centre, pulled down the gates and spent over 2 hours ransacking and vandalizing the centre.

“More than a dozen computers were destroyed. The server was also vandalized along with other equipments in the building. Just like the Watergate scandal in the USA, the state-sponsored security operatives apparently acting at the behest of the ruling PDP government turned the office upside down, and pulled out and vandalized everything in sight.

“If the PDP-led government and the security agents had done due diligence and acted professionally, they would have known that the APC data centre is a legitimate operation and the staff are Nigerian youths who were left jobless by the Jonathan government.

“Apart from the Lagos centre, the operation is decentralized and similar centres are functional in about six different locations around the country.

“They chose to believe the lie that it was a warehouse belonging to one of the national leaders of the party where dangerous weapons were being kept, when in fact it is a centre for entering the data provided by the millions of Nigerians who registered as members of the party during its membership registration exercise,” the party said.

It described the invasion as another act of impunity, now a trademark of the Jonathan-led presidency which is being edged on by the hawks in the PDP.

APC called the invasion of its offices an attempt to suppress the opposition, get details of its membership with the intention of using it to rig the 2015 elections and also to destroy the spirit of democracy.

“When in 6 October, 2013 we issued a statement alerting Nigerians that the Jonathan administration was using Rivers State as a testing ground for creeping fascism ahead of the 2015 elections, some said we were raising a false alarm.

“Well, here we are. In the past five months, the PDP-led government has stepped up its acts of impunity and terror against the leaders of the APC and all non-PDP actors.

“Elected officers, who are not PDP members, have had their rights repeatedly violated by the police and other security operatives. Never before has an elected government been so scared of the opposition to the point of shutting it down.

“Now that they have overreached themselves by attacking the offices of the main opposition party and destroying part of its membership database, can the PDP-led government still claim to be operating under the rule of law?

“Can the government sincerely tell the world it is now ready for free and fair elections in 2015? This is one impunity too many, and we will not allow it to be swept under the carpet,” the party vowed

So are you suggesting that nigerian women are sluts?

olu77:
DNA test is like HIV test. Who desires a life sentence?

I disagree. Unlike the HIV test, you shouldn't be scared of taking a DNA test to prove the paternity of your children if you havn't done anything wrong. So you can;t really compare both

I use to work at KAMORA's hospital years back. That's the hospital the united state embassy used for DNA testing for people filing for their spouses and children to come join them in america. I have to agree with this post. A lot of women have been exposed during my time working at KAMORA's .I am not shocked at all. I know nigerians like to be in denial. WE just use religion cover head.

Why mikel continues to wear the number 10 jersey is intricate to decipher. When was the last time you saw a so-called number 10 that plays ony backwards?

This is when you know Nigeria can't grow as a nation. These so-called delegates want more states added to the already unviable states? Nigeria should only have 9 states.

Garri the 1st: This attack against Ndigbo must be resisted by all sons and daughters of Ndigbo....

This has nothing to do with tribe, race or gender. The school doesn't offer a master program. Please be objective and reasonable for once.

Stella Oduah, Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation who is embroiled in a scandal of towering proportions in the ministry, faces new integrity questions as her Masters’ degree has been challenged by the United States school which supposedly awarded it.

Her resume, which she presented to the Senate as a ministerial nominee in 2011, indicated she obtained a Master's degree in Business Administration (MBA) from St. Paul’s College Lawrenceville, Virginia, United States.

But SaharaReporters has learned from the President of the college that it has never in its 125-year history had a graduate school or graduate program.

The Provost Vice President of Academic Affairs, and the Vice President of Institutional Development said in response to our inquiries, “We don’t offer any graduate programs here.”

Similarly, the school’s website states: “Saint Paul's College is accredited by the Commission of Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award baccalaureate [bachelor’s] degrees.” There is no mention of graduate degrees.

The Minister’s documentation shows she received an undergraduate degree in accounting from the college in 1982, but Dr. Claud Flythe, St. Paul’s current president, could neither confirm nor deny this during a phone conversation with SaharaReporters. Further verification with the Office of Alumni Affairs is also currently impossible, the school said, because the college has been closed since June 2013 to loss of its accreditation.

“[Oduah] realized very early in life the indispensability of a sound education in her growth plans in life and therefore pursued her education with all diligence and sense of purpose,” her documents claimed, adding that a determination “to have the best education at the highest level” prompted her stay at the Virginia college in 1983 for the MBA programme.

As her public relations machinery marched on, in December 2012 The Sun newspaper published an article headlined “Stella Oduah: An Amazon of transformation,” which lauded her “MBA from St Paul’s College, Lawrenceville Virginia USA.” The story also praised her for being an official who brought her “rich educational background to bear on the aviation sector by automating revenue centers in all the agencies and parastatals to boost their revenue profile and enhance transparency and accountability in the system.”

In October, SaharaReporters broke the story that Mrs. Oduah, a former campaign manager for President Goodluck Jonathan, purchased two bulletproof BMW cars worth $ 1.6 Million (N255m) through the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, for her own use.

Following an investigation, the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation dismissed the Minister’s pleas of innocence and all her rebuttals during her testimony. The committee’s report, which was subsequently adopted by the House, declared that no budgetary appropriation had been made for the purchase of the cars, and that the NCAA proposal for their purchase was rejected.

President Jonathan also set up a three-member administrative panel to investigate the matter, but he immediately travelled out of the country with Mrs. Oduah and Colonel Dasuki, the National Security Adviser who was to serve as a member of the panel. Not only did the panel submit its report much later than the two weeks it was given for the assignment, Mr. Jonathan has refused to release its report.

Mrs. Oduah’s new certificate questions are certain to feed into national concern about her credibility as an elected official, but also about Mr. Jonathan’s credibility, and about the nation’s security apparatus which verifies official documents offered to the Senate for official nominations.

If Mrs. Oduah deliberately deceived the Senate, it remains to be seen if the Upper House will be sufficiently motivated to take up the matter with the Executive.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s aviation industry continues to face a massive challenge, with struggling airports and airlines, as well as financial and administrative pitfalls that hinder expansion and development.

http://saharareporters.com/news-page/us-college-says-it-did-not-award-mba-stella-oduah-it-has-no-masters-programme

DID HE CALL 911??

We have an Intelligence Agency?

"captured"? Poor choice of word.

....AND THIS IS WHY NIGERIA IS THIS WAY IT IS. IT IS ONLY CORRUPTION WHEN IT IS NOT OUR OWN TRIBE...

Afam4eva: I was the one writing the names of noisemakers, so there's no way i would have written my name.

one idiot actually included his name back in secondary school. WE MADE HIM WRITE IT..WE ALL GO DOWN

That is one job nobody wanted back in JSS. You write my name down and I organize for you to be dealt with by my godfathers.....aka awon boys....