AG tackles El-Rufai
From Madu Onuorah and Lemmy Ughegbe, Abuja
A JOINT committee of Nigeria's top security agencies to co-ordinate investigation into the bribe-for-contracts in the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects may soon be set up by the Federal Government.
The panel will work to unearth the evidence and dramatis personae in the decade-long corruption scheme, where senior Nigerian officials have been fingered. It was not confirmed yesterday whether this is the same as or substitute for a Commission of Inquiry, which The Guardian learnt, was being canvassed by some public-spirited Nigerians, including Chuddy Ofodile, former chairman of a House of Representatives committee that first investigated the Halliburton scandal.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Kaase Michael Aondoakaa, who hinted of the move yesterday listed the agencies to be involved in the probe as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), State Security Services (SSS), the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the office of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP).
Aondoakaa told reporters at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, that the recommendation for the committee to start work was before President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.
Already, the EFCC has resolved to invite a principal actor in the scam, Mr. Albert Jack Stanley to Nigeria to furnish the anti-graft agency with more details on the corporate fraud.
The commission's resolve to invite the Halliburton former chief executive officer, was announced by its boss, Mrs. Farida Waziri in Abuja yesterday.
This is coming on the heels of The Guardian's report that Stanley is willing to come and testify in Nigeria.
Waziri said the EFCC would pick all bills incurred by Stanley, who opened the can of worms on the issue and had declared his willingness to testify in Nigeria on the matter.
Also yesterday, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) appraised the government's handling of the scandal and declared that it was far from convincing on the Yar'Adua administration's commitment to bringing to book all Nigerian officials linked with the bribery debacle.
Aondoakaa had on Tuesday assured that there would be no cover-up in the investigation and trial of anyone involved in the fraud.
The minister had reacted to allegations by the Action Congress (AC) that he was killing the nation's anti-graft crusade.
The minister said yesterday that as much as the Federal Government wanted to end the controversy over the Halliburton scandal and bring all culprits to book, there was no "quality evidence" yet in its kitty that could be used to successfully prosecute anyone.
He therefore asked for patience and understanding of Nigerians on the matter.
Aondoakaa said Nigerians should be assured that the Federal Government was working very hard to get credible evidence which would enable it to commence criminal prosecution and sustain a conviction.
To this end, he announced that the government had formally requested the United States (U.S.) government to assist Nigeria by de-classifying the information of the court proceedings on the issue.
According to him, "this request is just submitted about two weeks now. And what they are talking about relates to crime committed from 1994, that predates this administration. So, we have to look at it carefully. It did not take the U.S. government just two months or three months to investigate this matter, it took them up to two to three years to investigate this matte."
He said Nigerians should realise that the Halliburton case was a high profile crime with all the affairs structured, either in Switzerland or France, with offshore companies used to route the money.
Therefore, he said that Nigeria needed to have access to the necessary documents from the U.S. government to successfully prosecute the accused persons in the case.
He said: "If we have pocket size of information and this information under the Nigerian law, can you use it in court? No. I ask any lawyer in Nigeria to challenge that uncertified information, documentary evidence from public officials can be used in any court. Let any lawyer challenge that. This is the position of the law. We cannot change the law because that is the position of the Nigerian law. If you go now as a public officer and you want to tender a document which is a public document, you must certify the document except that document is the original that you seek to tender.
"And the requirement of certification of document is that you must put your name, that you are the officer that certified this document to be true version of the original, and you put your name and designation. This is all that we are requiring because when we have this document certified from foreign land and sent here, we have an original document to tender in court and say this is the information and the U.S. government is cooperating."
Asked how soon the panel was expected to be put in place, he replied: "I am just waiting as you are interviewing me to see the President to submit the request for the committee and we are proposing a joint committee of all the important security agencies, EFCC, SSS, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and office of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and they will have one forum. It should not be an uncoordinated investigation.
"The Halliburton case is an issue on which we have to follow the law strictly because if you don't follow the law the quality of evidence you will receive to be used in court to sustain a conviction would not be there. The Nigerian law requires that evidence, documents coming from a public officer must be certified. That is the requirement of the evidence Act for you to tender them in court. The moment you tender them in court, uncertified documents are rejected. What we are talking here is a matter relating to documentary evidence and in this case, the documentary evidence implicating Nigerians is with the government of another country.
"For that evidence to meet our legal requirements, we have to follow the procedures. We have signed an agreement with the U.S. government to co-operate on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. If somebody commits a criminal offence here but is resident in the U.S., we can ask for their assistance. If the U.S. government has documents that can help/ enable us to sustain a conviction here or to commence a criminal proceeding here, they can cooperate with us. We have an excellent relationship with the U.S. government. If we look at court proceedings supplied us by the U.S. government it is sealed. And the first contact with Stanley, he says he is willing to co-operate with Nigerian government and under the order of the court of the U.S. government. The information is sealed, unless the U.S. government releases it, then there is what is called classified information under the U.S. government where it is forbidden for you to disclose classified information. There somebody can go to jail for life for disclosing information that is classified. They have classified this information and sealed it and it is only through diplomatic channel that the government can get it and we are putting pressure on the State Department and the Attorney-General 's office in U.S. to release these documents to us because all the statements of the witnesses are there," he said.
He maintained that nobody would be shielded in the investigations but noted that "this process depends on the cooperation we have from the U.S. government but we have security agencies and I think that this is a matter we have to... also because no nation can watch a crime committed. We are going to constitute a committee which will now comprise a joint investigation committee because of its high profile nature the allegation contained and that committee will be charged with the responsibility of internally gathering information and if the quality of information we receive internally is sufficient for us to commence prosecution, we will do that."
On the allegation by the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Nasir el-Rufai that the government abandoned the issue of corruption, Aondoakaa dismissed it, saying that he (El-Rufai) "is just looking for cheap attention. But I believe that he has something in mind. Nasir is somebody who thinks he is intellectually above everybody and that is a reason he is bringing that. Nasir is likely to be charged to court on allegation of abuse of office and corruption, which was established by a committee of the Senate. It was live and everybody knows. But before he could be charged, he went to court to challenge that I cannot charge him to court. I am following due process. I am not talking against him and once the court gives me the leeway to charge him to court I will act. Now that it is apparent that you constitutionally can't stop government from charging somebody to court who has committed a crime; he is trying to deceive the foreign government where he is staying that he is a political prisoner.
"He is aiming at something. He is trying to get political asylum by trying to criticise government that eventually when we charge him to court and make a request from that government for his extradition, he will say it is because he is criticising the government. He is a bit late and he is clever by half. I think that corruption does not mean actually what you think; the worst form of corruption is to distort the system and try to create yourself as God. He tried to create himself as a God. He has no moral standing to criticise Mr. President. He wanted to be Mr. President, to be President himself. He has no moral standing to go behind the back and cripple the system and turn round to accuse anybody. He was only playing to the gallery. He and his cohorts have contributed to ruining the country. I can't see any single individual, even in the market square, once you create an empire to live above the law, that is simply what they did."
At a press conference in Abuja to mark the sixth anniversary of EFCC, Waziri said that the commission was prepared to invite Stanley as its witness and pick his bills and whoever is willing to help the commission's investigations in the Halliburton bribery scandal.
Waziri said the commission would seek the help of witnesses who have offered to testify on the matter when the case gets to court.
"We would be happy if a willing witness can testify. We would secure his coming down to Nigeria for free. If the case goes to court and we have that one vital witness, we will be happy," she stated.
The EFCC boss, who maintained that contrary to earlier speculations, the commission has not submitted any report on the matter, however said the anti-graft body is working on it.
She explained that the investigation has taken long because it has an international connection and is very complicated, stressing however that the commission would have its report soon.
Waziri also said the commission would soon begin the process of extraditing El-Rufai, whom she said the anti-graft agency has a serious case against.
She said investigators are waiting for El-Rufai to answer questions on sundry allegations against him but he has failed to do so.
On the Vaswani brothers, the EFCC boss explained that the commission has finished one leg of the investigation.
She however expressed dismay that after the five top officials of the Stallion Group, the company owned by the brothers, had agreed to the offence of dodging import duties to the tune of N2.5 billion, the company turned around to take the commission to court.
The NBA submitted that rather than shield the officials involved in the unwholesome act, the government has a duty to name and shame them by launching a full investigation into it and prosecuting them.
NBA President, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) articulated the association's position while speaking at the fourth Business Law Conference organised by a Section on Business Law in Abuja.
Akeredolu said government should avoid the empty sloganeering on the rule of law if it was not prepared to live up to the billings.
According to him, transparency is a fundamental ingredient of the rule of law and where the government talks about the rule of law and sloganeers it, then it must be seen to be transparent.
On the Freedom of Information Bill (FOI) before the National Assembly, he said the lawmakers were not committed to its passage, recalling "the bill had got to the table of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who refused to sign it into law and the National Assembly had the powers to veto that bill by a simple majority of two-thirds of the members but due to lack of commitment they left it."
On the occasion, the immediate past President of the International Bar Association (IBA) Fernando Pombo, described corruption as a disaster anywhere in the world just as he called for collaboration among nations to fight the menace.
According to him, "the more the rule of law is in effect in any country, the more the fundamentals of good governance are guaranteed, the more the rule of law is in effect, the more foreign investments are guaranteed, people will come to invest and the economies of such nations will in turn grow.
