IT has been suggested that corruption and not transformation, is the thrust of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, and this assertion has been given credence by the crippling impunity that now pervades every institution in the polity. Two bewildering examples are the Halliburton and Intercontinental Bank cases. These two judicial proceedings of immense magnitude and significance to the polity were recently dismissed – to the surprise of Nigerians – for such reasons as incompetent prosecution and other flimsy technical grounds.
The handling of the Halliburton matter is the classical example of a State in end-stage decay. It is a nearly two- decade old story of bribery and corruption in high places in Nigeria. Halliburton, an American oil service major had bribed its way into winning multi-billion dollars oil and gas contracts in Nigeria in the late 1980s. The bribery scam had leaked and the firm’s home country, America, had carried out an extensive investigation, after which it had been determined that the bribe money totalled $180 million; the bulk of which was paid to some Nigerian senior government officials.
In the aftermath of their investigation and subsequent prosecution, two Britons and an American have been sentenced by a Texas, United States court, for conspiring to channel bribes totalling $180 billion to Nigerian politicians and high government officials. Halliburton and some of its affiliate companies have been made to pay huge fines and to institute elaborate corporate governance procedures to forestall a recurrence of such malfeasance. All these happened over two years ago.
Ironically, Nigeria, the very stage for the bizarre drama where all the dramatis personae are domiciled, the Federal Government, under the counsel of its Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr Mohammed Adoke, has stymied the matter, making sure that it never gets to its logical conclusion. After the initial investigation in Nigeria, Mr Adoke tried to make light of the matter by telling Nigerians that no notable government official was involved or indicted. The Nigerian government chose to live in denial, even as former U. S. Ambassador to Nigeria Ms Robin Sanders declared publicly that documents and evidence needed by the Nigerian authorities to prosecute the culprits in the scandal have been made available.
When eventually, some hapless suspects were dragged to court, it became apparent that government had no intention to prosecute anyone for the bribery as the entire matter seemed designed to fail. A fortnight ago, Justice Abubakar Umar of an Abuja High Court had struck out the case, following the failure of the prosecution to arraign the suspects after over one year the case started. Justice Umar was quoted thus: “I have checked my records and in the past one year, since February 17, 2011 when I granted leave to the prosecution to arraign the accused; they have not done so.”
The same ‘designed to fail’ antics seems to be at play in the criminal charges brought against Mr Erastus Akingbola, former managing director of the now defunct Intercontinental Bank Plc. Accused of financial impropriety to the tune of billions of naira, Akingbola’s case was last week dismissed by Justice Charles Archibong of the Federal High Court, Lagos, over what he termed serious and professional incompetence of the prosecution team which comprised five Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs). This is a shocking development in a case where property belonging to the accused have been seized across the country and the bank in which he held substantial interest had been wound down.
This ‘designed to fail’ trend is real and examples are numerous. Some of them are the N12.4 billion oil windfall case; the N40 billion case against former speaker, Dimeji Bankole; the corruption case against former Ogun State governor, Gbenga Daniel; Tony Elumelu power contract scam and former works minister, Dr Hassan Lawal’s case. We recall that Mr Adoke was much criticised for being adept at deploying nolle prosequi to abort justice.
We can only hope that this is not a new trick in his old bag. If it is, it is ominous for Nigeria.
TheNation