01 Jul 2009 |
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| HALLIBURTON SCANDAL: IT IS GOOD NEWS FROM AMERICA By: Olu Akeredolu I read from The Guardian of Sunday, June 7, 2009 that the United States government refused to release the names of top Nigerian government officials implicated in the Halliburton bribery scandal involving US $180million. In their letter to Nigeria Attorney General and Minister of Justice Mr. Aondoakaa dated June 4, 2009 the US Department of Justice invoked Article 111(3) of the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal matters in force between Nigeria and United States. Earlier on, Kayode Oladele and his team of Attorneys have been hired to represent Nigeria to work on the US Department of Justice in its efforts to unravel the names of the Nigerian government officials involved in the bribery scandal. Kayode Oladele was the uncompromising Attorney who represented Nigerian human right activists and the estate of MKO Abiola against former Nigerian Military Heads of State and government for brutalities suffered by them particularly MKO Abiola’s detention and death in an unclear circumstance while in detention under the military rule. Oladele was consistent and dogged in prosecuting a case many considered as impossible especially in a foreign land. The success of that case which Nigerian government opted to settle out of Court earned him great respect in Nigeria, United States and all over the world. May be, for credibility sake, Aondoakaa had to contact him to represent Nigeria to work on the US Department of Justice to unravel the names of Nigerians involved in the Halliburton bribery scandal. To me, that would have been unnecessary or what is the essence of Nigeria’s letter of request to the US? The news came anyway and neither exercise has favourably worked for Nigeria. After the news, Kayode Oladele and his team lamented the rejection of Nigeria’s request by the US government. In their advice to Nigerian government, Oladele and his team tried to state its benefits if the names have been released to Nigeria at this time. That kind of advice, I presume, was their original argument before the US Department of Justice and was expected of them. What matters now is the way forward. It is also important to say that this news is being received by Nigerians with mixed feelings. It is good news for those that would have been indicted and who will have to cover their face in shame if the names have been released. As a tradition, some of them, with their family would go to Church while others would go to Mosque for special thanksgiving for God’s kindness in touching the heart of the Americans to withhold the release of their names. It is also good news for Aondoakaa, the chief law officer for Nigeria for another achievement. I say this because it was cheering news for him and Nigerian President when the London and its appellate court rejected what would have been the critical evidence against their friend and political benefactor from Delta state in his UK criminal trial simply because Nuhu Ribadu’s EFCC bypassed the office of Attorney General of the federation while making the evidence available to the crown prosecutors. Even if the procedure adopted by Nuhu Ribadu in sending the evidence to Britain was wrong, a federal Attorney General who genuinely love his country would ratify it in the overall interest of Nigeria. Aondoakaa instead celebrated the success of that rejection with its beneficiaries. The technical success of that rejection was to him more important than getting the accused punished in that case and retrieving the looted Nigerian money for the benefit of ordinary Nigerians. Aondoakaa and our President are both going to pump champagne for this one because there is no difference between the beneficiary of that rejection and the un-named Halliburton’s bribery scandal beneficiaries. They are all in the same club. But to majority of ordinary Nigerians, the June 4 date of the US letter was another sad day for our country. By fate, it coincided with the anniversary of the assassination of that Nigerian heroin of democracy and freedom, late Mrs. Kudirat Abiola. To this set of people, they would have been happy if the US, at least for their sake, had released the names whether or not the Nigerian government will prosecute those indicted by it. Officially, we would have known the names of some of the enemies of Nigerian people and progress. Sincerely speaking, do we really need to bother United States for the names of top Nigerian officials involved in the Halliburton bribery saga? I don’t think so. I say this because there are some allegedly known Nigerian facilitators between the bribe giver and the takers in this case. If Nigerian government is really serious in unearthing the names of Nigerians behind this mess, those Nigerian middle men who have been interrogated are already there to give out the names. The US government did not involve the Nigerian government when it was doing its own investigation and yet they got the names of all Nigerian officials involved. The Nigerian government and its rule of law chief legal officer are only hiding behind a finger. They were forced to write that letter of request just to buy time because of insinuations and the noise Nigerians were making about the scandal. Why must another country do our work for us? If a President has no courage to investigate a former President or former Heads of State or refuses to expose them as corrupt persons to Nigerians and the world when there is a need to do so because he does not want them to see him as the person behind their embarrassment and wants another country to do that work for him, then, he has failed in his duties as our President. To the real reason why the United States refused to give out the names, I think the US decided to use article 111(3) of the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters by way of diplomacy. In my opinion, the reasons why Nigeria was not invited to the G20 summit in the UK, the reasons why the first American black President, Barack Obama would choose to go to Ghana which is not more than a state in Nigeria instead of the most populous black country in the world while visiting West Africa in July 2009 are part of the covert reasons for refusing to give out the names. Moreso, a President who because somebody assisted him while contesting to be President, chose to be on the side of the terrible phenomenon of that person in place of what would have been an overriding national interest, such a President is not showing the sincerity required of him. He is only a ruler and not a leader. The American government knows that releasing the names as requested by Nigeria would only be an exercise in futility. They know, as things are in Nigeria presently, that nothing good will ever come out of it. Would you blame them? Look at the April rerun election in only ten local government councils in Ekiti State and how it was managed by the government and its agencies. The federal government of Nigeria and its “heaven will not fall” people threw decency and caution into the mud because their party was desperate to win that state at all cost! They didn’t care whether or not they were being watched by the rest of the world! What an irony! This greedy and tiny group of people has held Nigeria to ransom for too long and it must not continue like that. I want to once again call on all well meaning and true progressive Nigerians regardless of our tribe and religion to please come together to wrestle this country from those, who only think of themselves, their families and cronies to the detriment of general wellbeing of Nigerians. In selfishness, they have, for almost five decades, put our progress and development in chains. To them, the June 4, 2009 letter to Aondoakaa is good news from America.
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