Yar’Adua’s Halliburton Headache And Aondoakaa’s Legal Abracadabra

Yar’Adua’s Halliburton Headache And Aondoakaa’s Legal Abracadabra PDF

Written by Effiong Ekpo

Yar’Adua’s Halliburton Headache and Aondoakaa’s Legal Abracadabra

© Effiong Ekpo

If President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has not already done so, then he must now consider telling the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States of America to please, henceforth, mind their own business. Clearly, the greatest embarrassments Yar’Adua has suffered regarding his willingness to combat the gloating evil of official corruption have come from these two countries. From the UK came the case of one James Ibori even before Yar’Adua would finish taking his oath of office, and now from the US the Halliburton headache. That Yar’Adua has yet to openly declare a turf war must be due, I suspect, to the little matter of the appropriate diplomatese for doing so. In what decipherable language can a president confess to the world that it isn’t his country’s staggering corruption that gives him sleepless nights but, rather, how to keep the scandals secret?

Beyond conjecture, however, there is good indication of a wish to keep our dirty linen at home and unwashed under the guise of looking after our “internal affairs.” Remember Attorney-General Michael Aondoakaa’s 2007 letter to the British authorities on behalf of Ibori? Asked why he chose to write to the court through Ibori’s counsel thereby absolving the ex-governor of wrongdoing, the conscientious A-G retorted, “Has Ibori been charged to court in Nigeria?” Mark the key words, “in Nigeria.” After all, shouldn’t bribes to Nigerian government officials, whether or not denominated in US dollars and stowed away in Swiss Banks, be an internal affair of Nigeria? How Yar’Adua and his A-G must be regretting the noisy promise of that inaugural address! There would be “zero tolerance for corruption in all its forms,” Yar’Adua declared. Even worse, he added: “We are determined to intensify the war against corruption, more so because corruption is itself central to the spread of poverty. Its corrosive effect is all too visible in all aspects of our national life.”

We saw the awesome strength of this determination during the Ibori imbroglio when Aondoakaa did everything humanly possible except change his name to the ex-governor’s and stand trial in his place. And now with the Halliburton saga, we are witnessing an even more indefatigable resolve to give comfort and encouragement to treasury looters and nation-wreckers. All through the abracadabra of dry legalism, dissimulation, double-speak and outright deception. Thus, when asked if he intends prosecuting named bribe-takers (never mind the un-named), Aondoakaa claims to be hindered by the legal hurdle of hearsay. You see, he “does not prosecute out of the newspapers.”

And so off he went to the United States to personally see to it that he will not have to prosecute in or out of newspapers, but out of “information authenticated by the US government.” What if Aondoakaa gets a certified copy of the US District Court’s judgement, which apparently lists the bribed worthies topped by Obasanjo, fellow ex-head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, and former petroleum minister Dan Etete, will he then file charges? Not really, for there would remain the matter of ascertaining if any of the alleged bribe-takers actually took the bribes! A rather fine point of law, so he explains: “If somebody said I voted $40 million for you, which is his own wish, and if the money does not reach you, can I come and prosecute you because in his book he wrote $40 million?”

Aondoakaa will thread the finest legal needle, even a phantom one, if that excuses him from doing his duty. Halliburton may have admitted to bribing three Nigerian governments in a row from top to bottom, but that does not prove that they had any luck with the Mother Teresa-types they found! Consequently, if these maligned citizens are to be tried, we must provide Aondoakaa the crucial piece of evidence he needs. I doubt that the US court cites anyone who saw Obasanjo or Abubakar physically taking delivery of stuffed briefcases from Jeffrey Tesler. But were that improbable witness to come forth, that would still leave the question of proving that Obasanjo or Etete has anything to do with the bribe moneys sitting in Swiss bank accounts. Mr Aondoakaa has invented a legal obstacle card game straight out of a Charles Dickens novel called Beggar-my-Country. He and his boss, President Yar’Adua, love to play this game to divert themselves the deeper the country sinks into the bottomless pit of corruption.

As part of this game they have proposed a new anti-corruption bill to enable forfeiture of assets of accused persons pending trial. But this is a smokescreen; a dark cloud of confusion raised by their legal wand! And you can see Aondoakaa’s fig leaf in that bill. Who would expect an A-G to confiscate a citizen’s property before he is proven guilty by a court of law and the verdict affirmed by the Supreme Court? If only the British and Americans would stop making all so glaring Nigeria’s anti-corruption farce!

Effiong has most recently published The Oil Lamp, a volume of poems on the Niger Delta, and may be reached at germannefy@yahoo.com