Nigeria is one interesting country where anything goes and it is taken as one of those things. The entire process is not only laughable but could best be described as a sterile endeavour. If not how can one describe the controversial administrative panel report which is like a husband and wife recruiting their children into a panel to try a neighbour of their’s and then call the entire community to discuss the recommendations made. Interestingly, the panel report has so far generated more controversies than the actual volume of the entire EFCC and administrative panel reports. For instance, it is cited that for any “administrative panel” to have the power to indict as envisaged by the Constitution, it must follow the guidelines laid by the Tribunal Act. So far, there is nothing to indicate that the adhoc panel led by the Attorney-General met the set criteria.
How can there be talk
of embezzlement when there is no money lost? If you have to prove fraud
in general, you must show that the accused person gained a material
benefit. No where in the report is the Vice President shown to have made
a material gain.”
Did the placement of
the PDTF funds in the Equitorial Trust and Trans International banks
violate any existing law on the placement of the agency’s funds?
Curiously speaking, available data show that the PDTF funds were lodged
in 14 banks. So why is the lodgment in only two of the 14 banks
pre-occupying the president?
If the lodgment of the
PDTF fund in ETB was done to promote some personal business interests,
the question is: Did the vice president had any personal gains either
from the interest or any other area? When did Globacom pay for its GSM
license, was it before or after the lodgment?
The original deception
by the EFCC report was that the PDTF fund was lodged into ETB to enable
Mike Adenuga pay for the GSM license for Globacom. But this was
punctured at the wake of the controversies that have trailed the content
of the EFCC and administrative panel reports. The Paris-based PNB
Paribas Bank had said that in August 30, 2002, it directly remitted $180
million to the federal government on behalf of Globacom for the Second
National Carrier License and stressed that it was a loan facility with
all the documents available for review.
Mike Adenuga’s CIL
also in February 2001 secured a loan of $265 million from BNP Paribas to
pay the fee for the GSM license it won though this money was returned to
the bank when President Obasanjo suddenly cancelled the license already
awarded to CIL.
Again, the President
said that he set up this panel of investigation following complaints by
the U.S Congressman Williams Jefferson, the sense that is left in many
minds is that there is a certain kind of desperation on the part of the
President to stop the Vice President from the 2007 Presidential
elections.
Besides, when the EFCC
investigated the affairs of the Nigerian Ports Authority and reported to
the Federal Executive Council, the President did not see reason to set
up an administrative panel when billions of tax payers’ money was
reportedly lost. Yet, it is curious that in this particular case of the
PDTF where no money was lost, the President went ahead to set up a
kangaroo panel.
Is Mr. President
deceiving the Senate and Nigerians? Why the hurry by the EFCC to submit
a shabby report? Was the report in the first instance intended to
achieve a pre-determined goal of discrediting the vice president?
The people of Nigeria
have a right to choose who is to be their next president and no
military- style gimmick can take away this fundamental right The
Nigerian people who constitute the electorate should determine who
governs them. This inalienable right cannot be appropriated by any
individual or group of people. Nigeria remains a country governed by
law.
Anyway, the new claim
of a PDTF investigation at the instance of Jefferson conflicts
tragically, with the earlier claim in the President’s letter to the
Senate in which he claimed the investigation of the PDTF accounts was at
the instance of an FBI request.
Without picking issues with the EFCC report as presented, from obvious indications, the report is not thorough enough to support the allegations leveled against those being investigated
It was a good thing
that the Vice President Atiku Abubakar decided to go the courts to
contest the legality of the panel before what many Nigerians have
dismissed as a pack of lies, fabrications and political vendetta may
deceptively pass as an indictment of his person. ##
SENIOR FYNEFACE WRITES FROM PORT HARCOURT
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