After reading last Sunday’s offering, scandalised readers asked what happened to Pentascope after it had ruined NITEL/M-Tel. Answer: Its contract was terminated February 2005, after 20 months; it had paid itself $7, 600, 000 instead of $5, 500, 000 ($2,050,000 over-payment). Before Pentascope misadventure, NITEL-Mtel earned N1bn monthly and SAT-3 (Satellite arm) raked in N259million.
Then TRANSCORP Plc purchased 51% of NITEL/M-Tel for $500million but the late President Umaru Yar’Adua administration revoked that deal. A Senate Committee report said that TRANSCORP took over NITEL with a syndicated loan from UBA, Union, Skye, Wema and Intercontinental banks on 14th November 2006, but when Yar’Adua cancelled the deal, the loan stood at N76.8billion – and the Debt Management Office, had actually taken over the debt, and issued FGN bonds to the Consortium of Banks to be repaid from proceeds of NITEL/M-Tel privatization. Please don’t ask me if that meant that TRANSCORP had bought NITEL free of charge.
Questions poured in over the Halliburton scandal, too. Yes, Halliburton paid Nigeria $35 million (plus $2.5 million legal costs) to settle the case in December 2010; Nigeria had asked for $250 million. The bribery-for-contract scandal concerned construction of the Bonny Island LNG plant by a consortium of Technip SA, Snamprogetti Netherlands BV, JGC, and KBR.
Earlier on July 8, 2010, a court awarded $240million against Snamprogetti Netherlands BV and Technip SA, to benefit the US Department of Justice. In February 2009, KBR and Halliburton entered guilty pleas and agreed to pay a $402million fine to the US. But Nigeria accepted just $37million though her officials allegedly collected US$182million in exchange for US$6billion in engineering and construction work between 1996 and 2004.
Why did I focus on the two examples? Answer: Though part of the shenanigans concerning them took place during Obasanjo’s administration and was known to Ribadu, it was the late Yar’Adua that took any action. Yet, he was the only one Mr. Segun Adeniyi, Yar’Adua’s own spokesman, accused of being soft on corruption, in his book, POWER, POLITICS AND DEATH. Why? Because Yar’Adua was Chief James Onanefe Ibori’s friend. Yet, Obasanjo and Segun Adeniyi’s uncle, Gen. Mohammed Abdullahi, Obasanjo’s Chief of Staff for eight years, were in Aso Rock Presidential Villa from 1999 to 2007, but they are blameless. Why? Well, according to Mr. Adeniyi himself, his uncle, Gen. Abdullahi had told him of a bribery claim Ribadu made against Chief Ibori, and he, Adeniyi, had extended that rumour to Yar’Adua – who did not immediately turn against Ibori. Finish!
