Ribadu Says No Nigerian Implicated In The $1.5bn Halliburton Bribery Scandal Had Been Questioned

A former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, yesterday, expressed frustration with the inability of Nigeria to investigate and punish all who were implicated in the Halliburton bribery case.

Ribadu, who bared his mind in Abuja, regretted that none of the top Nigerian culprits implicated in the $1.5 billion bribery scandal had been questioned and jailed in Nigeria while others from other countries were already serving various jail terms.

Of the amount involved, top Nigerians got a total of $184 million within 10 years from an Italian firm that got a $6 billion gas project job in Nigeria.

The case cost Halliburton $1.5 billion in fines in the United States.

Ribadu said the Halliburton scandal presented a unique corruption case study in which “a gang of foreigners stole from Nigeria” through the $6 billion natural gas contract won by a consortium of four international companies.

He said: “I first got hint of the case in France. I got back home and tried to investigate the case but it was very difficult or probably impossible because the companies were not here in Nigeria, they didn’t have account there, the people were not there. They had left.

“I rushed back to Paris. I was in Paris many times. I put in a request letter but after a year of trying to get French authorities to help us, the investigating magistrate told me that they could not get anyone to translate my letter from English to French. I knew it was a hopeless case.”