U. S. President Barack Obama, or, U. S. President John McCain has to deal with massive corruption in Nigeria

Following news report by Guardian newspaper of Nigeria on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 that: Some top Nigerian officials in the regimes of the late head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha, his successor, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo administration have been linked with large scale fraud by the United States (U.S.) government, Africans In America News Watch conducted investigation which reveals that many Nigerian community news outfits and Nigerian-American attorneys in United States and Canada have requested for copy of the court papers on the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) bribery scandals.

Mr. Albert Jackson Stanley, the US citizen who headed an American Oil service firm, KBR, has recently pleaded guilty in a plea deal on that case at U.S. District Court in Houston, Texas.

Below are excerpts from U.S court documents:

“Defendant:

Stanley, age 65, is a United States citizen who resides in Houston, Texas, and a former employee of Dresser Industries, Inc. (“Dresser”) and Halliburton Company (“Halliburton”). Prior to September 1998, Stanley was the head of Dresser’s wholly-owned construction subsidiary, Kellogg, and a senior vice-president of Dresser. In September 1998, Dresser merged into Halliburton; Halliburton was the surviving entity. Halliburton combined Kellogg with its construction subsidiary, Brown & Root, Inc., to form KBR. After the merger and formation of KBR, Stanley was the CEO of KBR until 2001. He then served as chairman of KBR. He continued to work for the company until June 2004.

Entities:

Halliburton is a Delaware energy services corporation, headquartered in Houston, Texas and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Its common stock is registered under Section 12(b) of the Exchange Act and trades on the NYSE. It merged with Dresser in September 1998, and became the surviving entity. Prior to the merger, Dresser’s common stock was registered under Section 12(b) of the Exchange Act.

KBR is a Delaware engineering, construction and government services corporation headquartered in Houston, Texas. KBR was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Halliburton until November 2006, when KBR became a separate publicly-traded company. KBR’s common stock is registered under Section 12(b) of the Exchange Act and trades on the NYSE.

FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS: Stanley and Others Agree to Pay Bribes to Obtain Nigeria LNG Contract

The Nigerian government created Nigeria LNG, Ltd. (“Nigeria LNG”) in the late 1980s to develop the production of natural gas associated with oil production in Nigeria. At all relevant times, the Nigerian government owned 49% of the company and exercised control over the company.

In June 1990, in order to pursue certain LNG projects in Nigeria, Dresser subsidiary Kellogg formed a joint venture with three other multi-national companies. The joint venture began to pursue bidding on a construction contract to build two LNG Trains in Bonny Island, Nigeria. After Halliburton merged with Dresser and formed KBR, KBR replaced Kellogg in the joint venture.

Stanley was intimately involved in the joint venture and its business in Nigeria from the joint venture’s inception. Each member of the joint venture had one or more representatives on a steering committee that ran the joint venture. Stanley was a senior member of that steering committee at all relevant times.

Beginning at least as early as 1994, Stanley and other members of the joint venture determined that it was necessary to pay bribes to individuals within the Nigerian government to assist in obtaining the LNG contract. To implement and hide this scheme, they discussed: i) using sham consulting contracts with various individuals or shell corporations (agents); and ii) “downloading” the payments through subcontractors or vendors. Ostensibly, the agents or vendors would be retained and paid to perform legitimate services. In actuality, the agents or vendors would use the money in whole or in part to make corrupt payments to Nigerian government officials on behalf of the joint venture.

Eventually the joint venture decided to funnel the payments through two entities, using the UK Agent to pay high-ranking Nigerian officials, and using the Japanese Agent to pay lower-level Nigerian officials. Payments made to the UK Agent, as well as payments by the UK Agent to Nigerian government officials, were routed through banks in New York”.

Nigerian community in U. S. and Canada react

The members of the Nigerian community want to find out the names of individuals, especially, Nigerian leaders named in the court documents.

In United States people could request and obtain copy of public document under The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 4, 1966, and went into effect the following year. The FOIA has been amended 1996, 2002, and 2007.

This act allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States Government. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures and grants nine exemptions to the statute.

Africans In America News Watch investigation found out that such request could take few weeks or more to get result. If the request is denied, applicants could appeal the denial and that also may take some time to be resolved. If the request is not resolved there, the applicants could go to court to seek release of such documents and that too may take a long time.

Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua keeps safe distance from his more troubled predecessor, former President Olusegun Obasanjo

However, Nigerians in United States raise serious questions on Yar’Adua-led current federal government in their country of origin. They wondered what could have been the reason/s, Yar’Adua government has not requested for the list of Nigerian officials named in that scandals, thereby fuelling public perception that current Nigerian government is seriously compromised by corruption and incapable of fighting it.

Nigerians living in the western world, especially in United States have been the vanguard, and most times very aggressive, on the current effort to stop mass looting of public treasury by Nigerian leaders.

Africans In America News Watch will publish the full list of names contained in the court documents once it becomes available.

Our investigation has uncovered plans by human rights and anti-corruption activists to press for arrest, prosecution, recovery of loot and imprisonment of affected individuals when they obtain the court papers.

Out-of-control corruption has done so much damage to Nigeria. Not only has the country remains structurally and infrastructuraly undeveloped and underdeveloped, the associated kidnappings of western oil workers in the Niger Delta region and disruption of flow of oil by the militants seeking end of destruction of their environment is adversely affecting the major powers of the world. Therefore, there is global effort at this moment to address the root cause of these problems, and the main identified cause is corruption.

The governments of 3 Nigerian former heads of state, Army General Sani Abacha, his successor, Army General Abdulsalami Abubakar and Army General/President Matthew Okikiola Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo administration have long been considered by international bodies to be very corrupt.

Effort to get Nigerian government officials and members of Nigerian community in United States to comment proved abortive. No one wants to be quoted for safety and security reasons, since the 3 former leaders with history of many violence and human rights violations appear to be involved.

Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, Senior Special Aide (Communications) and Spokesman to Nigerian President Yar'Adua did not return emails we sent to him requesting his response.

----------------------- End of Africans In America News Watch report-------------------------

U.S. names Nigerian officials in N21b LNG scam

Guardian Newspaper, Nigeria
Tuesday, September 09, 2008

From Laolu Akande,
New York

Some top Nigerian officials in the regimes of the late head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha, his successor, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo administration have been linked with large scale fraud by the United States (U.S.) government.

Information filed by the American government under seal at a U.S. District Court in Houston, Texas shows that these Nigerian functionaries and their foreign collaborators siphoned N21 billion ($180 million) from the treasury through the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) trains and projects valued at N696 billion ($6 billion). According to records before the court, the bribery scandal ran for a decade, 1994 to 2004.

Although the names of former and current Nigerian functionaries, who shared in the bribe have not been released by the U.S. government, the stage for the prosecution of their cohorts has been set by an American oil company official, Mr. Jack Stanley, who last week pleaded guilty to the crime.

U.S. sources said that the bribery scandal involving topmost levels of the Nigerian government officials started in 1994 and continued till 2004 on the contract awards for Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) services in the building of the LNG trains.

Top Presidency, Petroleum Resources Ministry and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) officials on the one hand and the joint venture oil partners of the Federal Government on the other, reportedly oiled the fraud machinery.

The U.S. said its investigations had extended to and got co-operation from France, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (UK).

In the information before the court, the U.S. said that top executives of the Nigerian government, believed to be the head of state or president or oil minister would meet with Stanley, who has conceded to being the ringleader of the bribery scheme and the Federal Government official would then designate another person to negotiate and receive the bribes on behalf of Nigerian officials.

The document simply marked as "Information" and filed under seal, indicated that on or about November 2, 1994, one of the consultants used as conduit pipes in the scam reported that he spoke with "a senior official of the Ministry of Petroleum...that the first top level Executive branch official of the government of Nigeria would get N4.64 billion ($40 million) to N5.22 billion ($45 million)" of about N6.96 billion ($60 million) that was set aside for the consultant to bribe Nigerian official."

The document made available to The Guardian was dated August 29, 2008. It was filed at the Southern District of Texas State under the Houston Division and received by the Court Clerk, Michael N. Milby and submitted by Steven A. Tyrrell, Chief, Fraud Section, Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and signed by William J. Stuckwisch, an American government attorney.

The "information" added that "other Nigerian government officials would get N1.64 billion ($15 million) to N2.32 billion ($20 million) of the fee and that there would be a meeting between Stanley and the first top level Nigerian Executive branch official before any written agreement between Joint Venture and Consultant A."

According to the papers, on or about November 30, 1994, Stanley met other co-conspirators in Abuja "with the first top-level Executive branch official of the government of Nigeria to verify that the official was satisfied with Joint Venture using Consultant A as its agent and to confirm that the official wanted Joint Venture to negotiate with the senior official of the Ministry of Petroleum the bribes to Nigerian officials."

Similarly, on May 1, 1997, Stanley and other co-conspirators, according to the U.S. government met another time in Abuja, with "the first top-level Executive branch official of the government of Nigeria and requested that the official designate a representative with whom Joint Venture should negotiate the bribes to Nigerian officials in exchange for the first top-level Executive branch official's support of the award of the Train 3 EPC contract."

In 1997, after a change of government from Abacha to Abubakar, the U.S. disclosed that "on or about February 28, 1999, Stanley and other co-conspirators met in Abuja with a second top-level Executive branch official of Nigeria to request that the official designate a representative with whom Joint Venture should negotiate the bribe to Nigerian government officials in exchange for the second top-level Executive branch official's support of the award of the Train 3 EPC Contract.

On March 5 of the same year, the U.S. government said Stanley and others identified as co-conspirators met in London, with the "representative designated by the second top-level Executive branch official of the government of Nigeria to negotiate the bribes."

The papers showed that the sum of N3.77 billion ($32.5 million) was paid to a consultant to facilitate the bribe at that time.

As the scheme continued into the tenure of the civilian government of Obasanjo, two sums of N464 million ($4 million) and N5.9 billion ($51 million) were paid to bribe the Nigerian officials to facilitate the contracts, especially Trains 4 and 5 of the Bonny Island Project of the LNG.

On or about November 11, 2001, according to the U.S. government, Stanley confessed that he and a salesperson from an EPC contractor met in Abuja, "with a third top-level Executive branch official of the government of Nigeria and an NNPC official to request that the top-level Executive branch official designate a representative with whom the Joint Venture should negotiate the bribes to Nigerian government officials in exchange for the third top-level Executive branch official's support of the award of Trains 4 and 5 EPC contracts."

In the case of the Obasanjo administration, the chances are that Stanley was dealing directly with the Presidency since there was no oil minister then.

--------------------------------------End of Guardian news report-----------------------------------

Click the link below for detail on:
The complaint against Mr. Stanley and his Plea Agreement with US Government

Read the complaint here > (PDF format)