It would have been a very welcomed development to hear that the Federal Government as part of its anti-graft war has initiated a new offensive directed at multinational corporations and their home countries linked with various bribery scandals in Nigeria but for a very serious caveat.
As reported, the exercise, “which is being handled by the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, is basically pro-active in its entirety as it is designed to stem the tide of losses Nigeria suffers from such contract scams.” This sounds very good but the big problem is the executing Ministry and its Minister.
Meanwhile, there is a very serious allegation of bribery against the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Micheal Aondoakaa as reported by the media especially the web-based. It is being alleged that the Minister received a $6 million bribe from an Indian steel firm, Global Steel Holding for the promised reversal of the government’s decision on the lease contract of the Ajaokuta Steel Company.
Whether this is true or malicious, it just proper for the Attorney General to either explain or deny any knowledge of such payment by the Indian firm.
And until the Minister clears himself , he may not be standing on a proper moral ground to prosecute any organization or person for bribery and corruption when he is being ‘maliciously’ accused of the same or even a worse offence.
The details of the alleged transaction between the Minister and representatives of the Indian steel giant as reported by the media, Saharareporters and Pointblanknews were so revealing that either the story was given by someone in the GSH Ltd. or it was masterly packaged for outright mischief against the Attorney General. And whichever way, it is very necessary for Mr Aondoakaa to put the facts straight to avoid blackmail when he finally commences the prosecution of foreign multinational firms involved in bribery in Nigeria.
Although it looks very funny, the Indian company- Global Steel Holdings Ltd. involved in the Ajaokuta shady deal, wants Aondoakaa to refund $6 million alleged bribe money because of his inability to deliver on a deal to convince President Umaru Yar’Adua to reverse the federal government’s cancellation of the concession granted the company on Ajaokuta Steel Company. “Global Steel Holdings is asking Aondoakaa to either “deliver or refund the $6 million dollar bribe he received on the deal,” it was reported.
If it is true that the Attorney General promised to return GSH back to Ajaokuta in less than two months after fulfilling their own side of the bargain ($6 million bribe), the Indian firm has justifiable reason to play the spoiler now. It is now close to eight months after they allegedly gave the $6 million bribe and yet the Indians are nowhere close to repossessing Ajaokuta and may never repossess the plant.
This allegation in itself is very weighty that it cannot just be swept under. The Justice Minister needs to clear his name either by stating whatever discussion or business that transpired between him and officials of Global Steel or at worst compel the company to prove its case as this also could be an outright campaign to deform the character of the AG.
It would be recalled that President Umaru Yar’Adua on April 1, 2008 cancelled the concession granted Global Steel Holding Ltd. on Ajaokuta Steel Company by his predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo in 2004 citing skewness in the transaction in favor of Global Steel to the detriment of the Federal Government of Nigeria
According to the Presidency, “Instead of investing external funds on the completion of both projects as expected, GIHL embarked on massive borrowing from local commercial banks, pledging the assets of Delta Steel as collateral…GSH owes Nigerian banks $192 million…President Yar’Adua has ordered the criminal prosecution of indicated officials and promoters of GSL for asset stripping.”
So there is an obvious conflict of interests in the entire set up except the Indian firm is merely trying to blackmail the nation’s number one law officer or somebody is on a campaign to smear the AG.
Otherwise, there is nothing wrong in the Nigerian Government deciding to file actions against all the foreign multinational companies involved in bribery scandals on their own soil or in the world’s financial centres, where they are very active.
Also, all Nigerians implicated in such bribery cases involving government contracts should be prosecuted not just merely interviewed by either the Presidency or the National Assembly.
It would be recalled that a German court in Munich named some past Nigerian ministers of communications as well as a serving Senator as having received bribes of about 10 million Euro from the German engineering conglomerate- Siemens for telecommunication contracts.
The court, in an October 4 ruling, listed Maj.-Gen. Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Dr. Bello Haliru Mohamed, Chief Cornelius Adebayo and the late Alhaji Haruna Elew?, as well as Senator Jibril Aminu, among the alleged bribe recipients.
The court indicted Siemens for offering $100 million in 77 bribes to cabinet ministers in Nigeria, Libya and Russia, to win lucrative contracts.
Interestingly, President Yar’Adua in 2008 even without any form of investigation, granted a very clean bill of health to the German telecom giant and even went a step further to compensate them with mouth –watering turnkey contracts in the energy and telecom sector spanning for up to ten years. How things happen in this country.
The question now: is it possible to still prosecute this same Siemens for its offence in Nigeria? This is a moral question.
Also the former General Manager of Wilbross International, Mr. Jason Edward Steph, is at present facing prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Act for being the mastermind that distributed $6 million to some senior officials of Federal Government, the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) stalwarts, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) and Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC).
Indeed, there were revelations during the American prosecution of Wilbross officials that some officials of Shell may have benefited from the $6 Million bribe allegedly distributed by Willbross Group to secure contract for the Eastern Gas Gathering System (EGGS) in Nigeria.
The dirtiest so far is the Halliburton case, an American company, which allegedly paid $180 million to some Federal Government officials, to win bid for the construction of the first two trains of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) plant in the late 1990s.
The company admitted in the U.S that an internal probe suggested that members of the TSKJ consortium, which it leads as Kellog, might have bribed Nigerian government officials in order to win LNG contracts.
But the Nigerian officials allegedly named in the scam were not prosecuted despite the assurance given in 2004 by the Federal Government that the matter had been handed over to the then newly-inaugurated Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Halliburton was also said to have instructed its representatives in Nigeria to submit the names of the Nigerians allegedly involved in the scam to government. How this was done is at best obscured maybe because majority of the names were people in and around Government and of the PDP stock.
So before the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation rushes into filing suits against the foreign multinationals involved such bribery scandals in Nigeria, lets us do the first thing first- prosecute all Nigerian officials named in all the bribery scams and recover as much as we can from such culprits if it established that actually received such dole outs.
When this is done, we can then proceed to deal with the foreign companies that perpetrated or are still perpetrating this crime against Nigerianity.
IFEANYI IZEZE IS AN ABUJA-BASED CONSULTANT ON POLITICAL STRATEGY AND PUBLIC CONSULTATION ([email protected])
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