PTDF Scandal – Matters and Issues Arising From Senate Deliberation of the Ad-hoc Review Committee’s ReportByDan Azumi Kofarmatadanazumikofarmata@yahoo.com
Monday, 14 May 2007
The way and manner with which Nigeria’s shameless national assembly disposed its Senator Umaru Tsauri’s committee review report on the controversial Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba’s Ad-hoc committee report on the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) scandal involving President Olusegun Obasanjo and his estranged Vice President Atiku Abubakar did not come as a surprise to the generality of Nigerians at home and abroad. The main reason being that the National Assembly of Nigeria has become the only existing political spot market of the world. It has become a political spot trading floor for the exchange of political conscience for monetary and non-monetary benefits; at the expense of national interest, democratic norms and ethos, rule of law and good governance and in favour of personal aggrandizement of corrupt elected officials at the highest level of Nigeria’s national leadership.
The major means of payment (or “settlement”) in this political spot market is the popular Ghana Must Go instrument at the disposal of the political fixers of the Presidency. Other instruments that are freely used in the trading floor of this political spot market include non-monetary instruments such as free land allocation in choice locations of the Federal Capital City, Abuja and its suburbs within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), allocation of oil blocks without following the stringent due process mechanism, political appointment to Board membership of choice federal government agencies and parastatals, and multimillion naira contract award, amongst others. Therefore it is not surprising to hear the Senators absolving and exonerating President Obasanjo from the financial, economic and other sundry crimes established against him at the PTDF by all the two Senate ad-hoc committee and review committee reports respectively.
The Nigerian public at large is very much aware of the numerous scams and sleaze that took place in the Presidency over the past 8 years of Chief Obasanjo’s inglorious presidency. Ironically however, not long ago we were reminded by the very foreign friends of President Obasanjo that over 70 percent of corruption and corrupt practices in Nigeria take place in the Presidency. Subsequent events have since then, proved that assertive statement to be true. Now for the demagogue Senators to come with the type of verdict that totally absolved and exonerated President Obasanjo – a principal culprit involved in one of the worst financial and economic mismanagement of Nigeria’s funds for personal aggrandisement is to say the least despicable, unpatriotic and condemnable.
The truth and fact of the matter is that President Obasanjo and his estranged Vice President conveniently used the PTDF as their slush fund to finance their 2003 re-election campaign and projects or programmes that were not presented to the National Assembly for appropriation and or the federal executive council for deliberations and approval. They dipped their dirty hands to finance sundry projects such as the infamous Third Term bid, financial and material inducement of members of the National Assembly whenever there is an attempt against the interest of President Obasanjo in the National Assembly, funding of life styles of girl friends and mistresses, rewarding personal friends with questionable contracts without public tendering and recourse to due process mechanism (for example, the 250 million naira awarded to the law firm belonging to a lawyer friend/personal lawyer of President Obasanjo just to incorporate a bogus and still yet to be explained company called Galaxy internet Backbone).
All the numerous misdeeds perpetrated at the PTDF by the Presidency were cleverly hidden from the public until the robust and cordial relationship between the two principal beneficiaries of these sordid acts got shattered after the failure of the ill-fated Third Term debacle. The Nigerian public will not have known anything wrong was going on at the PTDF had it been that Vice President Atiku Abubakar supported and backed the ill-fated Third Term bid of President Obasanjo. Never mind the cooked-up and laughable alibi given by Nuhu Ribadu of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that it was the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) that requested Nigerian authorities to start the initial investigations of the PTDF by the EFCC. If that were the case, then the EFCC should bury it face in shame for its failure to discover the scandal until it was prompted by a more intelligent foreign body.
Nevertheless, whatever the Senate has decided on this sordid matter, Nigerians must be given satisfactory answers to the following matters and issues arising from the various instigations that PTDF was subjected to some months ago:
a) The illegal diversion of PTDF money by President Obasanjo to provide soft loans for civil servants, the police and the Armed Forces to purchase cars through the United Bank for Africa (UBA) PLC at a very ridiculous interest rate to the Fund. Least we forget the government is supposed to be implementing its monetization policy. There seems to be a huge contradiction here!
b) The illegal diversion of PTDF money by President Obasanjo to bankroll the establishment of internet connectivity in all the federal government-owned secondary schools (also known as Unity Schools) throughout the country, purchase of Computers for Civil Servants under the Computer for all Nigerian Initiative and the resuscitation of the moribund Defence Industry Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) when it is the statutory responsibility of other federal ministries and agencies to finance such undertakings.
c) The illegal diversion of PTDF money by President Obasanjo to bankroll to the tune of over $15 million, the integration of all federal government Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) related projects when this responsibility clearly falls under the statutory jurisdiction and responsibility of the Nigerian National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) - a parastatals of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology and other line ministries (see for example: http://www.nitda.gov.ng). Paradoxically, as PTDF is busy dolling out millions of dollars to other organizations to establish presence on the internet, it does not itself have even a corporate homepage to make it presence on the internet. It uses yahoo-based e-mail addresses for it workers and corporate communications. What an irony! Me thinks charity begins at home!!!
d) The illegal diversion of PTDF money by President Obasanjo to bankroll the establishment of the Nigerian Campus of the so-called African Institute of Science and Technology (also known as the Nelson Mandela Institute) while our own very existing Universities and Polytechnics are allowed to rot and decay for lack of adequate funds to make them world-class! Why can’t the money be sourced from the federal Ministry of Science and Technology or the National Universities Commission (NUC) for that matter?
e) The illegal diversion of PTDF money by President Obasanjo to bankroll the establishment and incorporation of a federal government-owned internet backbone company (i.e. the dubious and fictitious Galaxy Backbone) when ironically and paradoxically President Obasanjo has been busy implementing a brazen privatization of government-owned companies and businesses under the economic blue print of Almighty NEEDS. There seems to be a huge contradiction here! Why must PTDF be involved in this enterprise and not NITDA or even the recently inaugurated Nigerian Internet Exchange (NIX): (see for example: http://www.nixp.net) that is private sector driven?
f) Does the PTDF management as presently constituted have the internal technical, scientific and managerial capacity and wherewithal to plan, design and implement a national internet backbone infrastructure for Nigeria? Which statutory authority or agency is going to manage this fictitious and unexplained Galaxy Internet Backbone or is it going to be “privatized” to Transcorp Plc before May 29, 2007?
g) The coincidence of Governor Saminu Turaki of Jigawa State crossing over from ANPP to PDP and the sudden inundation of the PTDF with all sorts of ICT- related programmes and projects. For example, is there any organic relationship between the PTDF funded and incorporated Galaxy internet backbone and the existing Jigawa State Government-owned Galaxy Internet backbone (i.e., Galaxy Information and Telecommunications Limited – GITT Ltd). I recommend readers to visit this website: http://www.galaxyitt.com for detailed information.
h) Why is the former Executive Secretary of PTDF Usman Jallo who was arrested by EFCC for stealing over 40 million naira from PTDF and fired by President Obasanjo not prosecuted up till now and yet another former Executive Secretary of the PTDF Yusuf Hamisu Abubakar who is marginally linked with the larger scandal is being persecuted by the EFCC, the Presidency and lately, the National Assembly?
i) The renewal by Adamu Maina Waziri in July 2006, a management consultancy contract between PTDF and a Scottish University consulting company (i.e., UNIVATION Ltd, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK: http://www.rgu.ac.uk/univation/ ) given the fact that EFCC alleged that a former Executive Secretary of the Fund received a bribe from the company. Why is UNIVATION being rewarded with an extension of contract instead of sanction?
j) Governor Ahmed Makarfi of Kaduna State’s involvement in the politics of who becomes the Executive Secretary of the PTDF. Least we forget he masterminded the removal of Yusuf Hamisu Abubakar as the Executive Secretary of PTDF and provided the disgraced Usman Jallo as a replacement. Jallo was arrested and hand cupped by the EFCC within three months on the saddle for egregious stealing of over 40 million naira of PTDF money and converting a number of vehicles belonging to the PTDF for his personal use.
k) Former PTDF Executive Secretary Adamu Maina Waziri’s squandering of over 60 million naira of PTDF money to renovate the 3-year old PTDF Headquarter building and his office to meet his high personal tastes, desires and life style and the purchase of President Obasanjo’s photographs at a whooping sum of 4.5 million naira from PTDF accounts as a contribution to President Obasanjo’s private presidential library project. Least we forget the recently disbanded management of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) also dished out the sum of 45 million naira to an undisclosed author of a book as a token contribution by the Federal Ministry of Transport towards the launching of the book.
l) PTDF funding of overseas studies of the children of Chief Tony Aneneh, retired Admiral Murtala Nyako (2 Daughters), Senator Dr Ahmadu Ali (PDP National Chairman) and a host of other rich and influential politicians. These individuals are capable of giving foreign and local scholarships to tens of less privileged Nigerian children but yet are unfairly denying the children of poor Nigerians access to the PTDF scholarships.
These are by no means the only issues begetting answers from the Presidency, the EFCC and the disgraced Senate. One of the reasons why President Obasanjo refused to accent to the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill that was belatedly passed by the National Assembly is largely because he will not like to provide answers to these type of questions. Unless these and other pertinent questions are satisfactorily answered by those concerned individuals and government agencies, the PTDF scandal may not be laid to rest. |