As the overly glorified tales of Government probes beckon, reports making the rounds on social media and online blogs have been found to be false.
These tales suggesting that some retired Nigerian Army Generals and former Heads of State of Nigeria, forced and arm twisted President Muhammadu Buhari to only probe the immediate past administration for corrupt practices, have been exposed as mere fallacies.
A website belonging to Cable Network News, CNN, ireport.cnn.com, had last week carried a story which was also parroted by some online media platforms, that Buhari had before his departure on a 4-day working visit to the United States of America given an order that the Haliburton bribery scandal be re-opened.
The 1994 Haliburton bribery scandal had indicted top Military brass including former Heads of State, and a former Vice-President of Nigeria.
It was reported that they collected billions of US dollars as bribes for the award of the Bonny Natural Gas Project in 1994.
The former US Vice President Dick Cheney who used his company, Haliburton for the illegal deal was indicted by Nigeria in 2010.
However, according to the report last week, the presidential order to re-open the Haliburton case made the trio of Babaginda, Obasanjo and Abubakar,to convene an emergency meeting after which Babaginda was mandated to inform Buhari of their intentions to expose his corrupt practices during his time as the Minister of Petroleum Resources as well as the PTDF Chairman.
The report boldly claimed that the former Heads of State were privy to the $20 billions that mysteriously disappeared from the coffers of the NNPC right under Buhari’s nose.
It further alleged that the threat had made Buhari reconsider his decision, making the presidential Spokesman to hurriedly issue a statement making the Jonathan administration the sole focus of any probe.
The statement claimed; “probing other administrations might distract the President from fulfilling his electoral promises to Nigerians.”
In the false report, Babangida’s media aide, Kassim Afegbua had allegedly released a statement, cautioning Buhari on the consequences of probing the administrations before Jonathan’s.
However, POST NIGERIA’s investigations have revealed that no such meeting held, neither was such a statement issued.
When we contacted Afegbua, he debunked the report completely, pointing out correctly, that the statement was issued on August 28 2012.
Afegbua who now works with the Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole, implored readers to ignore such reports which he said emanated from “lazy, unintelligent, busy bodies who throw up stale news to be relevant”.
The report went further to claim the US had told Buhari to reopen the Hallibuton bribery scandal and bring the perpetrators to book or risk losing out on over $150 illegally stashed away in foreign banks by Nigerians.
When POST NIGERIA contacted the presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina, he also debunked the report, saying “no such thing happened”.
The report has since been reproduced by blogs and websites, suspected to be sympathetic to the immediate past administration.
Political analysts are of the view that the Halliburton bribery scandal is too strategic to be swept under the carpet.
Buhari would appear partial if probed the immediate past Government while overlooking cases such as the Halliburton affair.
During the last Federal Executive meeting held by Jonathan in May before the handover, he had stated that Buhari should go further in his probe by unraveling how oil wells were allocated.
Former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Business and Rules, Senator Ita Enang, had previously made the shocking revelation that at least 83% of the oil blocks in the country were owned by Northerners.
Enang’s disclosure came a day after the debate on the Petroleum Industry Bill had split the Senators along an uncomfortable North-South line.
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