Why Yar'Adua won't revoke rail contract, by Obasanjo
From Laolu Akande, New York
FORMER President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has maintained that the $8 billion railway project signed by his administration and which recently came under the critical lens of the Musa Yar'Adua administration will not be revoked.
Obasanjo, speaking in New York disputed the position of the Federal Government on the controversial railway contract his administration awarded to a Chinese firm, while answering reporters' questions on his new role as United Nations Special Envoy on the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
According to Obasanjo, the railway contract that he awarded "was thoroughly discussed and approved." But Obasanjo did not respond to the counter argument that the contract was not appropriated by the National Assembly.
The former President noted that the Yar'Adua administration had not said it would not go ahead with the contract, but only said, "they are looking for additional funds."
The question had been asked by a UN Correspondent that there was a conflict of interest in Obasanjo's new role as UN Special Envoy to Congo.
According to the Inner City Press report "the UN's envoy to the Congo, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, appears to have a conflict of interest. One of rebels, General Laurent Nkunda's main critiques of the Congolese government of Joseph Kabila is the $9 billion resource deal Kabila signed recently with China." On Monday at the UN, Inner City Press.
But, Obasanjo, responding to Nkunda's claim, said that when Nkunda spoke of economics, the Chinese contract was one of the particular issues he raised. Obasanjo added that 'I raised it to Joseph Kabila, who said 'all that passed through the National Assembly."
But, Inner City Press asked "isn't that controversy similar to the one embroiling Obasanjo in Nigeria, about his $8 billion railroad contract with China? Couldn't that be a conflict of interest?" Obasanjo said no, it has no bearing, "the railroad was fully disclosed and approved." He said that the "present administration is not saying it is not going on with the railroad," only that it is looking for additional funds.
Obasanjo also said that his own government's deal with China has "no bearing whatsoever," to his new role as UN's Special Envoy to mediate the crisis in Congo.
But while Obasanjo was denying that the Nigerian Federal Government might revoke the $8 billion railway contract awarded to a Chinese firm by his administration, an official of the Yar'Adua government, the Chief Economic Adviser to President Umaru Yar'Adua, Mr. Tanimu Yakubu, recently hinted that the contract may be revoked because it had been found to be illegal.
Yakubu claimed that since Obasanjo did not present the project and its budget to the National Assembly, the existing administration would not condone it because of its stand on rule of law.
"For an administration that prides itself on the rule of law, I don't see how an illegality will be strictly adhered to in the name of continuity," he said.
The $8 billion contract was awarded to Chinese Civil Engineering and Construction Company in 2006 as a turnkey package entailing the design, construction and maintenance of about 1,315 kilometres of standard gauge double track railway line from Lagos to Kano.
In 2007, the contractor received $250 million as advance payment for the project.
