All eyes are on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over what it will do with the $180 million Halliburton corruption case that involves sundry Nigerian public officials, with its receipt of five notebooks containing the names of the suspects. The more than 70-name list includes some former Nigerian Heads of State. Trials have been concluded in the United States, France and the United Kingdom, the suspects convicted and jailed, while the US reaped handsomely in fines.
But the authorities in Nigeria have been dithering, weighed down by their own moral baggage. A few of the suspects, initially arraigned before a Federal High Court, Abuja, were let off the hook. A recent media report indicates that the anti-graft agency is weighing all the evidence before it, with a view to taking a decision on those to quiz and possibly prosecute. The matter is a test-case for President Muhammadu Buhari’s government, which has displayed zeal in the ongoing effort to prosecute some alleged treasury looters during the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
Lack of diligent prosecution by the Federal Government had compelled the trial judge, Abubakar Umar, to strike out the case in 2012. This exposed government’s duplicity towards the case. The founding chairman of the EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu, who initiated investigation into the case, but could not go far as a result of his deviously contrived removal, said the $1.5 billion fine the US imposed on the firm was “the biggest in the world of corporate corruption.” It is ridiculous that Nigerians do not know, at least, officially, the public officials who had so far received $132 million in bribes, out of the $180 million on offer.
The Halliburton bribery scandal involves the kick-backs paid to government officials that paved the way for the TSKJ consortium to be awarded a $6 billion contract in 1995 for the expansion of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas company based in Rivers State.
Besides the country’s former rulers, some ex-ministers, former top Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation officials, military governors, bureaucrats, an ex-governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and political party apparatchiks are also embroiled in the messy affair. A notorious former Justice Minister was accused of buying shares in a private airline company with proceeds from the Halliburton bribe scandal.
Goaded by public pressure, rather than the need to serve the cause of justice, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua had directed a special panel headed by the then Inspector-General of Police, Mike Okiro, to investigate the matter. Its interim report to the Federal Government in 2010 showed, among other things, how the money was shared to the beneficiaries. With Okiro on the panel were the chairman of the EFCC and representatives of the Department of State Services and National Intelligence Agency.
Yet, all that the authorities did was to pussyfoot, in a case the conduit – Jeffery Tesler, a UK-based lawyer – had admitted guilt in February 2012, and was sentenced to 21 months in prison by a US court. What is more, he forfeited $149 million to the US government. According to the court testimony of another felon, Albert Stanley, the money was funnelled to Tesler in four tranches: $60 million; $32.5 million; $51 million and $23 million.
Nigeria’s rigmarole in this scandal eloquently underscores the bizarre reality of inequality of citizens before the law. It is a classic example of a justice-delivery system that has gone bonkers. Where some individuals are above the law, or are regarded as sacred cows in a society, is a recipe for anarchy.
Unfortunately, Abuja’s indifference all these years is also a result of the weird tradition of not subjecting former rulers to justice and accountability. This trend goes against the grain in modern governance. But the fact is that between 1990 and 2008, a total of 67 heads of state or government from 43 countries had either been charged or indicted for financial crimes or human rights abuses, as documented in the book: Prosecuting Heads of State, published in 2009.
The figure, undoubtedly, has increased since then. A former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is currently serving his 19-month jail term for bribery, while Silvio Berlisconi, a former Italian prime minister, was convicted for his involvement in a maze of tax fraud.
However, the EFCC has the opportunity to uncover this over-a-decade cover-up. “We have a list of those involved and there is nothing stopping us from charging them to court,” declares Itse Sagay, Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption. The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, who has done well so far, should, therefore, see this as another challenge he must pull through. Anything to the contrary will blight the administration’s anti-graft drive.
Indeed, corruption incapacitates; this explains why previous administrations have not had the courage to face the Halliburton conundrum. Buhari, who rode to power on the crest of an anti-corruption posture, should demonstrate the political will and reopen the case file.
