By Emman Ovuakporie
Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Thursday invaded the office of Halliburton on Victoria Island, Lagos, arrested 10 officials and two Managing Directors over an alleged $180 million Halliburton scam.

It was reliably gathered that the Managing Director of  Halliburton allegedly took to his heels immediately he learnt that EFCC operatives were around the premises of the company.

Managing Director of Saipem Construction Nig Ltd, Mr Giuseppe Surace and the MD of Tecnip Offshore Nig Ltd were however not lucky as they were both arrested.

An EFCC source revealed that the operatives also picked up 10 other top officials of the company, which is being accused of bribing top government officials to the tune of $180 million between 2004 and 2008 in order to clinch a Liquefied Natural Gas contract.

The source, however, explained that the managing director of Halliburton himself is on the run and had not been found by operatives as at 5pm.

The operatives are also said to have ransacked individual offices at the premises carting away documents, which the source said would aid the commission in its investigation.

Femi Babafemi, Head, Media and Publicity of the anti_graft agency  confirmed that some arrests had been made at the Halliburton office yesterday afternoon.

He said the raid was a result of fresh discoveries made by the EFCC on the alleged $180 million Halliburton bribery scandal.

“We have reopened the Halliburton case after the report of the Inspector General of Police was handed to the commission and we are continuing the investigation into the matter,” Babafemi added.

Halliburton has been fingered in a multi_billion dollar scandal involving the Nigerian Liquified Gas industry. Many former and serving top government officials including three former presidents were alleged to have received millions of dollars in bribes from American and European contractors retained to build Africa’s first liquefied natural gas plant in Bonny, Rivers State.