COULD THERE BE AN EFFECTIVE CHANGE IF ALL DIRTY DEALS ARE SWEPT UNDER THE CARPET?

ZION B-BC   NEWSLETTER. (Looking at Nigeria's Political system from a godly perspective).

A Publication of the Zion Faith Bible-Believing Church, Kpeyegyi, Abuja Nigeria. [VOL. 5. NO 157. 14th August, 2016.} “…ONLY The Truth, Will Set You   Free! (John.8:32).

COULD THERE BE AN EFFECTIVE CHANGE IF ALL DIRTY DEALS ARE SWEPT UNDER THE CARPET?

At an austere period of dwindling funds due to economic downturn, Nigeria might forfeit a whooping sum of USD$140 million bribe money recovered from secret foreign accounts of some Nigerian citizens by the United States Government, if it refused to reopen the Halliburton Bribery Scandal Case, prosecute and punish those found to be culpable! Halliburton is a United States-based crude oil drilling company with service interests in Nigeria's Oil and Gas upstream sector and which was at the centre of the scandal that rubbed off on ex-president Obasanjo's administration negatively and was expelled from the country! During ex-President Jonathan's Administration Halliburton was re-admitted to continue operation (in spite of the unresolved bribery scandal case against an aide to a former president which was botched in 2012, due to lack of diligent prosecution), because all staff/consultants that were involved were summarily prosecuted and punished in "a very professional manner"!
However, about a year ago, Halliburton was forced to stop  its operation in Nigeria by the National  Union of Petroleum and Gas Workers (NUPENG),  due to the company's decision to retrench local employees, but the issue was later resolved in favour of the workers. Although, three former Nigerian Heads of State, a former Vice President, a Minister, some Intelligence Chiefs and a few corporate entities were also fingered as beneficiaries of the bribes in the damming Halliburton report, none had been arrested nor prosecuted in any court of law. History of the Halliburton Bribery Scandal dates back to 1994, according to available information when the Military Administration of General Abacha, embarked on an ambitious plan to construct the Bonny Island Natural Liquefied Gas Project and monies began to exchange hands in order to inflate cost to about USD $6 billion but it was not until ex-President Obasanjo's administration that details of the scandal were fully revealed!
In the United States, according to the report, one of the culprits in the scandal, an American citizen and lawyer by profession, Jeffery Tesler, who acted as middle-man in the payment of the bribes, pleaded guilty for his role, was sentenced to 21 months in prison, forfeited US $148.964 million from his Swiss account to the United States Government and had since served his prison sentence while one of the indicted corporate bodies also opted for a plea bargain and paid the sum of US $25million to the Government but their Nigerian counterparts are still walking free! Did you know that further investigations into the bribe scandal in 2010 revealed that a former United States Vice President, Dick Cheney, who was Chief Executive Officer (CEO), of Halliburton before he was elected into political office, was indicted by Nigeria, but was later cleared when his company worked out a US $35million settlement, according to the report. It is strongly believed that President Muhammadu Buhari is eager and willing to re-open and prosecute anybody indicted, to serve as as deterrent to would-be bribe takers, most especially when Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, had publicly alleged that the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, was one of the indictees in the said bribe scandal and dared her to travel to the United States if she would not be arrested at the airport in respect of the alleged offence!
The First Lady who vehemently denied the accusations recently undertook a ten-day private visit to the United States and United Kingdom from Wednesday, 3rd August, 2016 and had since returned to Nigeria, without being arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as predicted by Fayose! During the visit to the US Institute of Peace, Washington, where she was invited to speak, she granted an interview to the Voice of America (VOA), and debunked claims by critics that her trip was sponsored with public funds but asserted that her expenses and those of her aides including government officials who accompanied her on the trip were personally funded adding that her office as First Lady was not also funded by the Buhari Administration because her activities were supportive in nature.
Anti-corruption campaigners in Nigeria and the Diaspora have mounted pressure on the Change Administration of President Buhari to identify and prosecute all Nigerian citizens involved in the  bribery scandal which they believed had taken too long especially when the indictment, prosecution and conviction of foreign companies and their top executives involved in the scandal both in Europe and America, had long been concluded! Halliburton which offered drilling services to Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron in Nigeria, was involved in a network of secretive banks and offshore tax havens used to funnel USD $182million in bribes to Nigerian officials in exchange for $6 billion in engineering  construction work for the liquefied gas project; but with the exposure of the scandal, the project was eventually handled through Turnkey Engineering Procument (EPC) and  awarded to a consortium of four engineering firms comprising,  Snanprogetti, MV Kellog, Technip, and Japan Gas Corporation for USD $ 1.2 billion! Commercial operation began in 1999 with continuous and steady expansion. Now that the US Government had shown Nigeria the RED CARD, will the bribery scandal case files be dusted up and re-opened to invite all indictees for further interrogation and prosecution at the law courts or would it remain under the carpet?

Stolen Ecological Funds!
The year 2012 will remain in the annals of Nigerian history as a year of unprecented flooding which almost drowned the entire nation into Atlantis!  Ecological Fund from inception in 1981 had been in the custody of State Governors just like the SECURITY FUND and always on the first line charge to provide immediate resources for quick intervention in ecological challenges such as soil erosion, flood, drought, desertification, oil spillage, pollution, general environmental pollution, storm, tornadoes, bush fire, crop pest, landslide earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis etc; but these funds were never expended for the aforementioned purposes. They were usually diverted to personal/political project, campaigns, and pseudo contracts in an unprecedented massive fraud running into billions of naira of the poor masses common wealth! Throughout the 16 years of the failed consecutive governments of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), only one Governor, now a serving Senator, was caught and presently being prosecuted by the EFCC for diverting N100 million ecological fund for his personal and political party's use!
Should this malaise that threatens the very existence of the poor Nigerian masses also be swept under the carpet?

Casualisation Of Nigerian Workers By Expatriate Employers Is Unethical!
For how long will the Nigerian masses be subjected to the whim and caprice of foreign entrepreneurs who take advantage of government's weak economic policies and labour laws to rip off casual workers of their hard-earned wages!  Crooked Lebanese, Chinese and Japanese employers of labour in Nigeria have become notorious for violating all labour codes and rights in respect of terms and conditions of service - especially the controversial issue of casualization of workers!
Casualisation is the manipulation of labour laws to force regular workers accept temporary, casual or non-contractual short-term employment which attracts pittance for salaries to the advantage of employers in contradiction to all legal norms. These Middle East  and Asian exploiters have clever methods of intimidating desperate job seekers to accept any condition of employment provided they would take home regular pay - no matter how meager for as long as the project lasted!
In most of their factories which manufacture domestic utensils, plastic wares and polythene bags etc, these hapless workers are engaged to work 12 hours per day - day and night shifts - for a paltry ten thousand naira in 30 working days - weekends inclusive if they are luck because of lack of supervision and monitoring by labour agencies and unions. Minimum wage in Nigeria is eighteen thousand naira per month for the lowest income earner but because there were no form of agreement, these foreign employers maltreat the workers who were never considered for any form of allowances -not even for sickness or hospital bills - they still deducted their "salaries" at month end if they claimed that some damages were incurred in order to further pauperize the poor masses of workers - an attitude they dared not exhibit in their home countries!
Section9 (1) (c) of the Labour Act 1974, defines contract of employment as any agreement whether ORAL, WRITTEN, EXPRESS, or IMPLIED! Whether one person agrees to employ another as a worker and that other person agrees to serve the employer as a worker while the Employment Compensation Act 2004 extends the definition of an employee to persons employed on a casual basis or under apprenticeship. The fact that the aforementioned contracts were not documented does not preclude them from all benefits and protection conferred on workers under the Act! Employer of labour would be guilty of an offence if they neglected or ill-treated any worker irrespective of his category while maternity rights for women remained sacrosanct under sections 54, 55 and 56 of the Act, for defaulters on conviction could spend at least one month in prison! The suffering masses whose fundamental rights were being violated on daily basis believe that the Change Government of President Buhari, would address this sensitive issue and rescue them from the SLAVE MARKET of bigoted strangers on their fatherland!
The persistent fight against corruption for the NEXT SEVEN YEARS AND NINE MONTHS of President Buhari's TWO-TERM IN OFFICE IS OUR CRUSADE! We need not remind our amiable President that he belongs to everybody and he belongs to nobody.
"Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people". (Proverbs. 14:34)

Please look forward to more divine revelation in the next edition of Zion B-BC Newsletter as you share this with friends and remain blessed in the Lord. [For weekly access, to this newsletter, log on to:  facebook.com/zionfaithbible.believingchurch or http://www.zfbbc1.blogspot.com, https://www.google.com/+zionfaithbiblebelievingchurch.

If you have not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour, don’t miss this great opportunity as you pray this prayer: Lord Jesus; I confess that I am a sinner who needs to be saved through the grace of the New Testament of your Blood, shed on the Cross at Calvary; I renounce every sin in my life and accept you as my Lord and Saviour. Please forgive me and write my name in the Book of Life. Amen. If you prayed this prayer, you have been admitted into the family of sons and daughters of God, who are born-again. Congratulations.

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, Resident Pastor and Editor. 08130669886, 08098194390.  08080243066   g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com.