By Owei Lakemfa SEVEN years ago, the Nigerian Telecommunications Plc  (NITEL) was a beautiful bride.  It was courted by many suitors most of them out of lust.  NITEL was the telecommunications gold mine, and many miners, most of them illegal, sought to steal its precious metal.

The world has, in the last many months, worried about the effect of the “global financial meltdown”, but what has been happening to Gordon’s cabinet since the expenses scandals broke and only days to local and European elections is a clear case of “executive meltdown”, the cabinet is the equivalent of a sinking ship and everyone is in a hurry to bail out.

Tri-Star Investment Ltd and Marubeni Inc with a mandate to “bribe” Nigerian decision makers of the executive branch of government, NNPC and NLNG officials and other political leaders “according to a sealed indictment filed at the U.S District Court in Houston, Texas” (See March 29 Sunday NEXT) was invented as a means to outwit their home governmnts’ bank monitors and their national regulatory authorities. The scheme was not invented to defeat Nigeria’s EFCC but to avoid detection by the contractors’ legal authorities.