Moral Terrorism in a Brave New World

By

Kòmbò Mason Braide, Ph.D.

kombomasonbraide@msn.com

 Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

Tuesday, 6 January 2003 @ 7:33 pm.

 

Opacity Versus Transparency:

That Nigeria has been ranked the second most corrupt country in the world, after Bangladesh, by Transparency International, is a boring stale story, even if the criteria applied in arriving at such a damning conclusion may not be obvious yet to some inordinately, and chronically “patriotic” Nigerians who, predictably, are still in a state of severe post-shock denial. Nevertheless, a wide-circulation French Sunday newspaper, Journal du Dimanche, reported in its 21 December 2003 edition that, between 1995 and 2000, when US Vice President Dick Cheney was the Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton, (incidentally, also during the same period when Generals Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar, and Olusegun Obasanjo were in power in Nigeria), some bribes were allegedly doled out by that oil service company in Nigeria, and that, probably, some of the bribes may have found their way back to the United States of America. (Holy Moses!)

At the very core of the matter is a US$6 billion natural gas liquefaction plant built in Nigeria on behalf of Shell by Halliburton, (the company Dick Cheney headed before becoming the Vice President of the USA), in partnership with Technip, a French multinational engineering company. Now, the cheeky question being asked is: “Did some of the bribes go to Halliburton’s officials, or to some officials of the Republican Party in the USA?” So far, this question has not been asked by the mass media in the United States of America, and as usual, they have conveniently and completely ignored the explosive French newspaper headline, targeting their Vice President. Certainly, it will be interesting to see if the world press revisits this scandal before the next Presidential elections in the USA, later this year. At any rate, Justice Renaud van Ruymbeke, the famous investigating magistrate that unearthed major elections campaign finance scandals, which led to the indictments of several high profile politicians in France in the 1990s, has been conducting a probe of the Nigerian natural gas liquefaction deal since October 2003.

On Monday, 22 December 2003, another Parisian newspaper, Le Figaro, hinted that Renaud van Ruymbeke has notified the French Ministry of Justice that US Vice President Dick Cheney might be among those indicted as a result of investigations into the Nigerian bribery scandal. Renaud van Ruymbeke believes that some (or all) of the US$180 million in secret so-called “retro-commissions” paid by Halliburton and Technip were, in fact, kickbacks (i.e. bribes) given to certain Nigerians and others elsewhere, to grease certain palms for “expediting” the multi-billion-dollar natural gas liquefaction project.

Meanwhile, a London-based British lawyer, Jeffrey Tesler (Esq.), who has worked for Halliburton for some 30 (meritorious) years, has been identified as the front who was paid the US$180 million as a “commercial consultant”, through a Gibraltar-based company, called TriStar, which in turn, got the money from a “consortium” that was set up specifically for the Nigerian deal, and registered in the tax-evaders’ paradise of Madeira, a Portuguese (so-called) “offshore banking” island. Another former top Technip official has also testified that the Madeira-based so-called “consortium” was in fact a “slush fund” dispensing mechanism, controlled by Halliburton, through its subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, and Technip. He swore that Jeffrey Tesler (Esq.) was imposed by Halliburton as an intermediary. (Good Gracious!)

Jeffrey Tesler (Esq.) is a veteran cool operator within Nigeria’s elite circles. He was the financial adviser to General Sani Abacha (GCFR), and controlled the dead general’s personal fortunes, while at the same time, working for Halliburton. According to Journal du Dimanche, suspicions that Jeffrey Tesler (Esq.) laundered the US$180 million through “offshore banks” and other similar bogus accounts, may be correct, and that part of the money may have wound up in General Abacha’s private piggy banks in Europe, America, the Middle East, and elsewhere. And so, Tesler’s bank accounts in Monaco, Switzerland and elsewhere have been investigated, in an effort to find out where the bribe went.

Beyond Photographs And Fingerprints:

The impetus for Justice Renaud van Ruymbeke’s trans-national investigation is a law passed in France in 2000 against “bribing foreign officials”, following its ratification of a convention, adopted throughout the OECD, prohibiting bribe-giving (and bribe-taking) in the course of commercial transactions. It is very unlikely that Ruymbeke’s targeting of US Vice President Dick Cheney might be retaliatory for the exclusion of France from juicy reconstruction contracts in Iraq, by the White House, post-Saddam. However, in Nigeria, it is very likely that the targeting of Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, in the Nigerian media, might be retaliatory for the roles he played, pre-4-19: i.e. the 2003 presidential elections:

For sure, Renaud van Ruymbeke is exceptionally single-minded, and his previous investigations have been aimed at politicians and political parties, irrespective of their political persuasion. He is not a stranger to the insalubrious world of oil and gas politics, having previously investigated bribe-giving by the French multinational oil company, Elf. Indeed, it was in the course of his Elf investigations that Renaud van Ruymbeke stumbled on the shady deals of Halliburton and Technip, in the murky waters of the upstream sector of the Nigerian petroleum industry: Surely, this is yet another sordid chapter in the foggy annals of Halliburton, which might as well lead to the indictment of US Vice President Dick Cheney by a French court, on charges of bribe-taking, bribe-giving, money-laundering, and misuse of corporate assets.

Meanwhile, Nigeria remains stigmatised as unsafe, politically meta-stable, and very corrupt, just as the United States of America continues to “fine-tune” the scope of its self-assigned “War against Terrorism” in all possible “axes of evil”. However, there exists a glaring problem in another equally crucial sector of the “war” that is staring Americans and Nigerians in the face, right there, in the “axis of moral terrorism”, located neither in Iraq, nor in Afghanistan, but at their very doorsteps, right there in the White House, and in Aso Rock Villa.

This problem of “moral terrorism” is definitely beyond rhetoric, biometrics or similar other apparati of mass control in the new world order: Who will be Nigeria’s Justice Renaud van Ruymbeke? Who will be the van Ruymbeke of the USA, in their brave new world of blatant moral terrorism? Why are our representatives at both the national and states assemblies, and the Nigerian Judiciary (in particular) so strangely passive, complacent, and/or nonchalant about Nigeria’s notoriety for corruption, worldwide? Why has a law not yet been passed in Nigeria, since 29 May 1999, explicitly prohibiting bribe-giving and bribe-taking in the course of all transactions, between Nigerians, in Nigeria or overseas? Why?

The “Cat-and-Mouse” battle continues.

Kòmbò Mason Braide (PhD)

Tuesday, 6 January 2003 @ 7:33 pm.

I welcome your comments (via e-mail: kombomasonbraide@msn.com), and encourage this article to be freely reproduced, published, photocopied, scanned, faxed, reprinted, reformatted, broadcast, digitised, uploaded or downloaded, in whatever manner or form, with or without acknowledgement, or further permission.