Dateline: Abuja, Nov. 27
Saharareporters has received a highly reliable tip that officials of Julius Berger, the construction giant which handles a lot of contracts in Nigeria, are taking some usual steps to cover up the company’s monumental involvement in corruption practices.
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Specifically, the company has gone into a frenzy of removing or gutting its laptop computers containing potentially incriminating evidence of its questionable financial transactions across Nigeria.
Julius Berger enjoys a virtual monopoly in big public construction contracts in Nigeria as well as sundry areas of the Nigerian economy.
Two top officials of the company gave Saharareporters a detailed account of how the unfolding Siemens bribe scandal has led Julius Berger to take pre-emptive measures to avoid being caught in a similar trap.
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The sources revealed that, as soon as the Julius Berger management became aware that the Siemens case was growing into a major scandal, they retrieved all company laptops associated with financial transactions as well as construction sites and flew them to an unknown destination outside of Nigeria.
Julius Berger's corrupt entanglement with Nigerian government officials is not news. For example, company built a multi-billion naira home for former Nigerian dictator, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. The 50-room mansion was the company’s gratitude for the plethora of no-bid contracts Julius Berger had enjoyed in the building of Nigeria's capital city of Abuja.
Also, the company is known to have built an imposing house for Col. Halilu Akilu (rtd.), the army intelligence officer widely regarded as responsible for the 1986 parcel bomb assassination of Dele Giwa, one of Nigeria’s most enterprising journalists and co-founder of Newswatch magazine.
Apart from building houses for select top government officials, Julius Berger has a reputation for bribing public officials with cars, huge electric generators and cash.
Amb. Baba Gana Kingibe, the current Secretary to the Federal Government, is one of the beneficiaries of the company’s corrupt largesse. Mr. Kingibe’s house in Abuja was built for him by Julius Berger while he was a cabinet minister under the late military dictator, Sani Abacha.
Meanwhile, we have learnt that Nigeria's Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) may have uncovered Julius Berger's suspicious moves.
An ICPC source told Saharareporters that they have received actionable intelligence on the activities of Julius Berger.
The commission’s agents may soon order that the company submit for inspection all computers it has used in the last 8 years.
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