….President orders recovery

By KINGSLEY OMONOBI

Abuja – Against the backdrop of the fear that the $26. 5million (about N3.8billion) plea bargain payment made to the Federal Government by a construction giant named  in the $180 million Halliburton bribery scandal to  escape  prosecution may be missing, the development has attracted the attention of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Consequently, the baffled President had, Sunday Vanguard learnt, weekend,  directed the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to search for the money and furnish him with details of the account into where the money was lodged.

Jonathan’s directive reportedly  followed an alarm raised by some members of the five-man inter-agency panel investigating the bribery scandal who claimed  that, after the construction giant entered into a plea- bargain arrangement to escape prosecution  and paid $26.5m to government, nobody could trace the account into which it was paid.

Indications that the money may be missing, according to sources, emerged when the investigation panel, which ought to have been given evidence (documents) of payment  as well as the account into which the money was paid to, for record purposes, as it was yet to close its reports, could not be furnished with the information months  after the money was paid.

The construction giant  had been discovered during investigations  by the panel as being one of the suspected  conduits through which Mr. Jeffery Tesler, the international lawyer, who allegedly distributed the bribe money, sent millions of dollars to notable Nigerians.

Sunday Vanguard gathered that several attempts by the  panel to locate the  money resulting in visits to the office of Mr. Mohammed Adoke, the Attorney-General of the Federation, yielded no concrete result  even as  the Attorney-General was said to have asked  the panel to make further inquiries from government agencies.

Consequently, it was gathered that officers investigating the scam may decline appearing in court for the forthcoming prosecution of other suspects after the arraignment of Mr. Bodunde Adeyanju, erstwhile special assistant to former President Olusegun Obasanjo on domestic affairs, last month, and his subsequent release on bail.

It was further gathered that some of the investigating officers were not happy about the twist in the entire Halliburton saga as their investigations, which, according to them, had enough evidence to nail many of the original suspects, with many of the top suspects confessing and even signing plea bargains, had, more or less, collapsed before their eyes.

The United States (US)  had warned  Jonathan that  unless he pursues  the prosecution of suspects in the $180million Halli-burton scandal to a logical conclusion,  it ( US ) would not back his 2011 presidential  bid.

The US  further disclosed that it was ready  to help Nigeria collect and return some of the millions of dollars of the bribe money stashed in Swiss and other European banks provided the president ensures the suspects  are arrested and prosecuted.

Consequently, the government ordered the  arraignment of five suspects including Bodunde, Aliyu Ibrahim, AVM Dominic A. Bello and Mr. George Mark,  for their alleged  roles in the scandal while others like Mr. Gaius Obaseki, former GMD of NNPC, initially fingered in the scandal, are to become prosecution witnesses.

Bodunde was alleged to have confessed to the investigating team that he collected  $6million from Obaseki while he was lodging at Transcorp Hilton and handed the money over to Milium Lawal Batagarawa who then gave it  to some chieftains of a political party.

Vanguard, our sister paper,  had reported months back that the plan to arraign and prosecute only Bodunde, Aliyu, Bello and a few others was causing problems to the inter-agency panel probing the Halliburton scandal as the action would likely backfire.

Six  persons, viz, Bodunde, Ibrahim Aliyu, Batagarawa, Bello, Obaseki, were said to have, at a point  during investigations,  granted bail on ‘plea bargaining’.