Corruption in Nigeria Reaches Washington
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Corruption in Nigeria Reaches Washington
Corruption in Nigeria Reaches Washington
By DULUE MBACHU, AP
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - When British officials intercepted a Nigerian man with a briefcase stuffed with $200,000 at London's Heathrow airport, they thought they had stumbled upon a terrorist trail.
Instead, the cash-filled carry-on has led to the highest-profile corruption case yet in Nigeria, where bribery scandals have been reaching to the world's leading capitals, including Washington.
Three former Nigerian Cabinet ministers and two other former government officials are due in court Friday in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, on charges of accepting part of more than $1 million in bribes from France's electronics giant, SAGEM SA. The accusations stemmed from September's Heathrow arrest.
It's only one international Nigerian payoff probe: In Paris, a French judge has reportedly warned that Vice President d#$% Cheney could be charged over allegations that his former company, Halliburton, paid $180 million in bribes to build a Nigerian gas plant. Halliburton has called the accusations untrue, and Cheney's spokesmen have refused to comment on the case.
Corruption has persisted despite promises by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who won election in 1999 after 15 years of brutal - and rankly corrupt - military rule in this oil-rich nation of more than 120 million people.
Obasanjo pledged to cure the "cancer" of graft, but there have been no significant convictions, and no senior-level arrests and trials until now, in the president's second term.
"If he had started with such trials in his first term, the perception of Nigeria would have changed" regarding corruption, said Ishola Williams, a respected retired general who represents Transparency International, the Berlin-based corruption watchdog, in Nigeria.
Many Nigerians hope the graft case against former Labor Minister Husseini Akwanga, former internal affairs ministers Sunday Afolabi and Mahmud Shata, and two other ex-officials is a sign the government is finally revving up its the anti-corruption drive. Akwanga was the only official still in office at the time the SAGEM scandal broke. He was fired just before his arrest.
The former officials are accused of taking from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars each, allegedly payoffs from SAGEM to secure a $214 million contract with the Nigerian national identity card program in 2001.
Charged Dec. 30 with 16 counts of graft each, the five are due back in court Friday.
Authorities also are holding civil servant Chris Agidi, arrested at Heathrow as he allegedly took the payoffs abroad for deposit in foreign banks. They have not charged him.
In Paris, SAGEM spokeswoman Veronique Faivre declined comment.
In Nigeria, Information Minister Chukwuemeka Chikelu told The Associated Press that the case "demonstrates the resolve of the government that there is no hiding place for corruption in Nigeria."
Nigeria also is following the French probe into allegations that a consortium involving Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root paid about $180 million to win a contract to build the $4 billion-plus Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas plant in the mid-1990s.
Cheney was head of Halliburton for five of the seven years during which the secret payments were allegedly made.
French daily Le Figaro reported last month that Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke had warned the Justice Ministry in a confidential memo that embezzlement charges ultimately could be filed against Cheney. But he added that it was too early to say whether this was likely, Le Figaro said.
Other allegations are abundant:
Nigerian prosecutors also have been investigating a disclosure by Halliburton that an official of Kellogg Brown & Root allegedly paid $2.4 million to a Nigerian official in 2001 in return for lower taxes.
In October, U.S. oil and gas drilling company Baker Hughes agreed to an out-of-court settlement with a former British employee, Alan Ferguson, who claimed he was fired because he failed to bribe a Nigerian official in 1999 to win a drilling contract.
Nigeria is consistently ranked by Transparency International as the second-most corrupt nation in the world after Bangladesh. Payoffs are nearly mandatory for everything from traffic violations to getting phone connections.
Nigerian officials, however, prickle at their negative image abroad - accusing favor-seeking foreign firms of fostering a culture of graft.
Some foreign firms have served as both "sponsors and perpetrators of corruption," Chikelu said.
But Williams of Transparency International insists that despite foreign connections, Nigerian graft is homegrown.
"If Nigerians are not bribe-takers, then nobody can bribe them," Williams said.
Associated Press writer Laurence Frost in Paris contributed to this report.
01/22/04 16:13 EST
By DULUE MBACHU, AP
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - When British officials intercepted a Nigerian man with a briefcase stuffed with $200,000 at London's Heathrow airport, they thought they had stumbled upon a terrorist trail.
Instead, the cash-filled carry-on has led to the highest-profile corruption case yet in Nigeria, where bribery scandals have been reaching to the world's leading capitals, including Washington.
Three former Nigerian Cabinet ministers and two other former government officials are due in court Friday in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, on charges of accepting part of more than $1 million in bribes from France's electronics giant, SAGEM SA. The accusations stemmed from September's Heathrow arrest.
It's only one international Nigerian payoff probe: In Paris, a French judge has reportedly warned that Vice President d#$% Cheney could be charged over allegations that his former company, Halliburton, paid $180 million in bribes to build a Nigerian gas plant. Halliburton has called the accusations untrue, and Cheney's spokesmen have refused to comment on the case.
Corruption has persisted despite promises by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who won election in 1999 after 15 years of brutal - and rankly corrupt - military rule in this oil-rich nation of more than 120 million people.
Obasanjo pledged to cure the "cancer" of graft, but there have been no significant convictions, and no senior-level arrests and trials until now, in the president's second term.
"If he had started with such trials in his first term, the perception of Nigeria would have changed" regarding corruption, said Ishola Williams, a respected retired general who represents Transparency International, the Berlin-based corruption watchdog, in Nigeria.
Many Nigerians hope the graft case against former Labor Minister Husseini Akwanga, former internal affairs ministers Sunday Afolabi and Mahmud Shata, and two other ex-officials is a sign the government is finally revving up its the anti-corruption drive. Akwanga was the only official still in office at the time the SAGEM scandal broke. He was fired just before his arrest.
The former officials are accused of taking from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars each, allegedly payoffs from SAGEM to secure a $214 million contract with the Nigerian national identity card program in 2001.
Charged Dec. 30 with 16 counts of graft each, the five are due back in court Friday.
Authorities also are holding civil servant Chris Agidi, arrested at Heathrow as he allegedly took the payoffs abroad for deposit in foreign banks. They have not charged him.
In Paris, SAGEM spokeswoman Veronique Faivre declined comment.
In Nigeria, Information Minister Chukwuemeka Chikelu told The Associated Press that the case "demonstrates the resolve of the government that there is no hiding place for corruption in Nigeria."
Nigeria also is following the French probe into allegations that a consortium involving Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root paid about $180 million to win a contract to build the $4 billion-plus Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas plant in the mid-1990s.
Cheney was head of Halliburton for five of the seven years during which the secret payments were allegedly made.
French daily Le Figaro reported last month that Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke had warned the Justice Ministry in a confidential memo that embezzlement charges ultimately could be filed against Cheney. But he added that it was too early to say whether this was likely, Le Figaro said.
Other allegations are abundant:
Nigerian prosecutors also have been investigating a disclosure by Halliburton that an official of Kellogg Brown & Root allegedly paid $2.4 million to a Nigerian official in 2001 in return for lower taxes.
In October, U.S. oil and gas drilling company Baker Hughes agreed to an out-of-court settlement with a former British employee, Alan Ferguson, who claimed he was fired because he failed to bribe a Nigerian official in 1999 to win a drilling contract.
Nigeria is consistently ranked by Transparency International as the second-most corrupt nation in the world after Bangladesh. Payoffs are nearly mandatory for everything from traffic violations to getting phone connections.
Nigerian officials, however, prickle at their negative image abroad - accusing favor-seeking foreign firms of fostering a culture of graft.
Some foreign firms have served as both "sponsors and perpetrators of corruption," Chikelu said.
But Williams of Transparency International insists that despite foreign connections, Nigerian graft is homegrown.
"If Nigerians are not bribe-takers, then nobody can bribe them," Williams said.
Associated Press writer Laurence Frost in Paris contributed to this report.
01/22/04 16:13 EST
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Re: Corruption in Nigeria Reaches Washington
Naija fan,
I think you have it the other way around. You should title this "Corruption in Washington reaches Nigeria"
I think you have it the other way around. You should title this "Corruption in Washington reaches Nigeria"
Re: Corruption in Nigeria Reaches Washington
I agree with you. The title I used is the same one used by the writer. I always try as much as possible not to put my own slant on things that I post from third party sources. I let people figure it out for themselves just like you just did.Solowe wrote:Naija fan,
I think you have it the other way around. You should title this "Corruption in Washington reaches Nigeria"
"It is not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you are not."
