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Saturday, March 12, 2011

Halliburton and Nigeria: A Chronology of Key Events in the Unfolding Bribery Scandal

Discerning Nigerians were alarmed recently as The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation; Mr. Bello Adoke Exonerated former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Abdulsalami Abubakar of complicity in the Halliburton Bribery Scandal.


Adoke said that contrary to speculations, some highly placed Nigerians were involved in the Halliburton bribe scandal, but only aides of former Presidents Sani Abacha, Abdulasalami Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo were involved in the scandal.

Responding to questions from the Members of the Senate Committee on Judiciary during the Ministry's budget defence, the Justice Minister added that their finds indicate that the aides acted on their personal behalf and not on that of their principals.

I am therefore calling for an Independent Committee of Nigerians with Integrity to conduct a full fledged public hearing so that we can really go into the bribery scandal.

We should fully support a member of the Senate Committee, Senator Ikechukwu Obiora, who urged the Senate to conduct a public hearing on the scandal.

He queried: “The special assistant to President Olusegun was paid money in order to influence the award of this contract.

Was the contract a continuous one? So the successive governments were just taking part of what belong to them? But our President, Olusegun Obasanjo’s aide was paid.

Was that meant for the aide or was it meant for the president?

“The Committee need to conduct full fledged public hearing so that we can really go into the bribery scandal.”

.....Let us refresh the minds of Nigerians on the Chronology of Key Events in the Unfolding Bribery Scandal Halliburton and Nigeria:
1988: Dresser Industries acquires M.W. Kellogg, ten years before Dresser merges with Halliburton.

September 1994: M.W. Kellogg and three other companies form a partnership known as TSKJ, incorporated in Medeira, Portugal. Each partner owns a 25 percent equal share. Kellogg's three other partners are Technip of France, Italy's Snamprogetti, and Japan Gasoline Corp.

The partnership submits a bid to Nigeria LNG to build a natural gas plant in Nigeria. Nigeria LNG is owned by the Nigerian government and Royal Dutch/Shell Group. TSKJ's $2 billion bid is not immediately accepted even though it was 5 percent lower than a bid submitted by competitor, Bechtel Group, Inc.

Read more @ http://elombah.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5318%3Ahalliburton-and-nigeria-a-chronology-of-key-events-in-the-unfolding-bribery-scandal&catid=52%3Adaniel-elombah&Itemid=73

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