EXPOSED: President Jonathan’s Re-election Campaign Director, Haliru Mohammed Enmeshed In Bribery Scandal
New reports which emerged on Saturday has revealed that President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2015 reelection campaign, Bello Haliru Mohammed, a former minister and once an acting chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is a certified bribe taker indicted by a German court in 2007.
Jonathan named Mohammed as his reelection campaign director on Thursday and he would be supported by a former senate president, Ken Nnamani, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius, and the political adviser to the President, Rufa’i Alkali.
Mohammed’s appointment has led to the revelation of a bribery case for which he and other senior officials of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration were indicted of by a German court in 2007.
According to the report, a 4 October 2007 ruling against Siemen AG, the Munich State Court named Mr. Mohammed as one of the recipients of 77 hefty bribes paid by Siemen officials in three countries, Nigeria, Russia and Libya.
The indictment, published in November 2007 by the United States-based Wall Street Journal, listed Mr. Mohammed, who at the time was the Minister for Communications as having received millions of Euros in bribes, alongside other Nigerian cabinet members, to allow the German Conglomerate a piece of the Nigerian telecoms market.
The court said Siemen AG paid more than 10 million euros to Mr. Mohammed, former telecommunications ministers, Tajudeen Olarewaju, Cornelius Adebayo and Haruna Elewi, as well as an unnamed Senator, an unnamed immigration officer, and the PDP.
President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Mr. Mohammed as the Nigerian minister of Communications in June 2001.
His appointment coincided with the time the FG was planning to privatise the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited, NITEL.
According to the court papers, Mr. Mohammed received 550,000 euros in kickback in July 2002 and another 150,000 euros in August 2003.
It also said several ministers under the Obasanjo government received unspecified sums of money on behalf of the ruling PDP.
“According to the Munich court ruling, Edward Seidel, who headed Siemens’ operations in Nigeria earlier this decade, helped deliver many of the bribes to the final recipients,” the US Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
“In August (2003), according to the (Munich) court, Mr Siekaczek and Mr Siedel funnelled a 150,000 euros bribe to Mr. (Bello) Mohammed, following a 550,000 euros payment the year before when he was still the Nigerian telecommunications minister,” the paper reported.
According to the paper, “the Munich court estimated that the roughly 12million euros bribes in Nigeria, Russia and Libya produced at least 200 million euros in ‘unlawful economic advantages’ for Siemens.”
The Munich court also said the bribe payments was coordinated by a top Siemens Manager, Reinhard Siekaczek.
Siemens, at the time, accepted responsibility for the misconduct of Mr. Siekaczek and agreed to pay 210 million euros in fines to the German government.
Following the indictment of Mr. Siekaczek, German prosecutors said they would not pursue action against non-German citizens who were identified as recipients of the bribes, leaving them to be punished by their own governments.
But seven years later, Mr. Mohammed, and other recipients of the bribes, have escaped justice with two investigations by the EFCC and ICPC yielding no indictments.
It is however not clear if President Jonathan is aware of corruption allegation against Mr. Mohammed.
