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Halliburton: I have no case to answer –Atiku

Posted by arimah patrick ifeanyi on September 13, 2010 at 12:08am
Former Vice President, AlhajiA former vice-president of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has said that he has no case to answer over the Halliburton bribery scandal.About $180m was said to have been received between 1996 and 2002 by Nigerian government officials as bribe through a subsidiary of Halliburton, an American company, to facilitate the award of $6bn LNG contracts.In an interview the Economic Confidential, an online publication, Atiku said he had not received any invitation from authorities in the United States over his purported involvement in the said scandal.“If anybody has a case let them bring the case. Nobody has even interviewed me (on the bribery scandal). There are no evidences against me. This is just the work of political opponents who will stop at nothing in order to destroy your political career,” the former V.P said.Asked if the Halliburton scandal influenced his preference for travelling to Dubai, instead of the US where he has a home, Atiku told the Economic Confidential that ”The United States is not Nigeria. They will call you wherever you may be.”My wife is a citizen of the United States of America. I was going to the United States because my family was there; my wife took up a job in Dubai as an assistant professor at the American University in Dubai. So we moved.”I therefore visit my family in Dubai. And if the United States was looking for me or my wife, about two or three weeks ago, we were at the United States embassy, here in Abuja, to renew the passports of my children who are American citizens, if I have a case to answer they would have arrested either of us.”On the political development in the country, the former vice-president also said that 12 hours was enough to change electoral fortunes in any election.He said, “As diverse as we are, we have the capacity to come together in less than 12 hours. In 2003 convention, it was within few hours that we decided that let us give it to this man. Even at the convention ground, states were calling to ask, ‘should we still vote for this man or that man?’ I would say ‘yes go ahead and vote.’ So do not underestimate the capacity of the north to come together within 12 hours.”On the erratic power supply, Atiku, who recently declared his intention to contest in the next year’s presidential election under the People Democratic Party recommended “captive electricity plants.”According to him, a captive power station is the shortest way to get sufficient power and also the shortest way to get foreign investment into the power sector.He said: ”When you have captive power stations they are either small or medium and private sectors can easily come in and fund them without government getting involved.”
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