Atiku’s presidential bid and the shadow of the US Siemens’ case, By Kayode Oladele

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The report said nearly $25 million was wired by offshore corporations into more than 30 US bank accounts opened by Jennifer Atiku, with substantial transfers involving Guernsey Trust Company Nigeria Ltd., LetsGo Ltd. Inc. and Sima Holding Ltd. It also examined millions of dollars in additional transfers associated with the development of the American University of Nigeria.

Alhaji Abubakar Atiku is once again asking Nigerians to entrust him with the presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. As a former Vice President and someone who had contested for president several times, his long public record is inevitably part of the case on which his candidacy will be judged.

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That record, in my view, is not and should not be limited to his years in government, political experience or the programmes he offers the electorate. It also includes questions arising from financial transactions documented by institutions of the United States government, particularly the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ examination of millions of dollars associated with Atiku and his family entering the United States through offshore companies and separate Siemens-related transactions examined by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The significance of the matter lies partly in the provenance of the allegations. These are not claims originating from Nigerian campaign literature or social media speculation. They are contained in official American records and I will proceed to explain the details.

In 2010, the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations published “Keeping Foreign Corruption Out of the United States: Four Case Histories.” One section carried the striking title, “Abubakar Case Study: Using Offshore Companies to Bring Suspect Funds into the United States.”

According to the Subcommittee, Jennifer Douglas Atiku, identified as Atiku’s fourth wife and a US citizen, helped her husband bring more than $40 million in what the Senate termed “suspect funds” into the United States between 2000 and 2008.

The report said nearly $25 million was wired by offshore corporations into more than 30 US bank accounts opened by Jennifer Atiku, with substantial transfers involving Guernsey Trust Company Nigeria Ltd., LetsGo Ltd. Inc. and Sima Holding Ltd. It also examined millions of dollars in additional transfers associated with the development of the American University of Nigeria.

The timing is significant. Atiku served as Vice President from 1999 to 2007, meaning that much of the financial activity examined by the Senate occurred while he occupied Nigeria’s second highest public office. The Subcommittee’s broader concern was how foreign politically exposed persons, their relatives and associates were able to move potentially illicit funds into the American financial system, and whether US safeguards were adequate to scrutinise such transactions.

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Within this wider financial trail, the Siemens transactions attracted particular attention. The SEC had acted earlier, in 2008, in a civil enforcement proceeding examining Siemens AG’s worldwide bribery practices.

In relation to Nigeria, the Commission alleged approximately $12.7 million in suspicious payments connected with government telecommunications projects, including at least $4.5 million in bribes. It further alleged that approximately $2.8 million in bribe payments was routed through a Potomac, Maryland bank account belonging to the wife of a former Nigerian Vice President, Jennifer Douglas Atiku.

According to the SEC, Jennifer Atiku represented a consultant that entered into purported agreements with Siemens for supply, installation and commissioning services, although the Commission alleged that no actual work was performed.

…substantial Siemens-related payments into an American account belonging to the wife of Nigeria’s serving Vice President, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku inevitably invite scrutiny. What legitimate commercial services formed the basis of those payments, who performed them and what documentary evidence exists of the work? The questions are particularly pertinent because the SEC alleged that no actual work was performed under the purported consulting arrangements involving Mrs Jennifer Atiku.

The Senate investigation came later and had a different purpose. In following the Jennifer Abubakar Atiku financial trail, it referred to the SEC’s allegations and separately identified at least $1.7 million in Siemens payments within its case study. The SEC’s approximately $2.8 million figure and the Senate’s at least $1.7 million figure therefore arose from separate inquiries examining overlapping aspects of the transactions; they should not be considered as competing calculations of precisely the same finding.

The context makes those payments difficult to dismiss as an incidental detail. In December 2008, Siemens AG and three subsidiaries entered guilty pleas in the United States, attracting combined criminal fines of $450 million. Siemens separately agreed to $350 million in disgorgement in the SEC proceeding, while coordinated US and German enforcement actions resulted in penalties exceeding $1.6 billion.

Against that background, substantial Siemens-related payments into an American account belonging to the wife of Nigeria’s serving Vice President, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku inevitably invite scrutiny. What legitimate commercial services formed the basis of those payments, who performed them and what documentary evidence exists of the work? The questions are particularly pertinent because the SEC alleged that no actual work was performed under the purported consulting arrangements involving Mrs Jennifer Atiku.

Transactions of such magnitude should ordinarily leave a documentary trail. Contracts, invoices, correspondence and records of services performed could establish what Siemens was paying for and why. If the SEC’s characterisation was inaccurate or incomplete, such evidence would provide a compelling answer.

However, Siemens was only one part of the much wider financial activity examined by the Senate. The Subcommittee’s account of nearly $25 million passing from offshore corporations into more than 30 US accounts owned by Jennifer Abubakar Atiku raises separate questions about the provenance of the money and the purpose of the corporate structures through which it moved.

The existence of offshore companies does not, by itself, establish wrongdoing. Such structures have legitimate commercial and investment uses. The relevant issue is why these particular entities were employed, who beneficially owned or controlled them, what economic activities generated the funds, and why they were used to transmit substantial sums into the United States.

Those questions become more pointed in light of the Senate’s account of Jennifer Abubakar Atiku’s dealings with American banks. The report stated that some banks were at times unaware of her status as the wife of a politically exposed person. When questions arose over the large transfers, Jennifer Atiku reportedly indicated that the funds came from her husband, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, while professing little familiarity with some of the offshore corporations actually transmitting them.

If Mrs Jennifer Abubakar Atiku understood the money to have come from Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, while companies with which she reportedly had limited familiarity were sending it, the role of those entities becomes an obvious subject of scrutiny. Their ownership, relationship with Atiku, underlying businesses and purpose in the movement of the funds are matters capable of documentary explanation.

This brings the inquiry inevitably to Alhaji Abubakar Atiku himself. The central issue is not simply what passed through accounts bearing his wife’s name, but what he knew about financial arrangements that the Senate associated with him and his family. What did he know about the payments? What did he understand them to represent? And what was his relationship with the offshore companies transmitting funds that his wife, Jennifer reportedly described as coming from her husband?

The response recorded by the Senate adds to the significance of those questions. Jennifer Atiku denied wrongdoing. The report nevertheless stated that when her counsel was presented with information concerning the Siemens transfers and asked for an explanation, no explanation for those particular transfers was provided. It also stated that Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, through counsel, declined to answer the Subcommittee’s questions.

For a man seeking the Presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, those questions invite clear, comprehensive and documentary answers. Until they are satisfactorily addressed in the public domain, the US Senate’s Abubakar case study and the shadow of the Siemens affair will remain part of the historical record against which Atiku Abubakar’s presidential ambition is scrutinised.

There is another part of this history that cannot be overlooked. For roughly 12 years, Atiku did not visit the United States, a prolonged absence that generated persistent controversy over his US immigration status and the American corruption investigations in which his name had featured. When he eventually travelled to Washington in January 2019, Reuters reported that the visit followed a temporary suspension of a travel restriction linked to earlier bribery controversies.

The chronology is important: His prolonged absence predated the Senate’s 2010 Abubakar case study and therefore cannot properly be attributed solely to that investigation. Questions surrounding his ability to enter the United States had earlier been associated with the FBI corruption investigation involving former US Congressman William Jefferson, who was eventually tried and convicted.

Alhaji Abubakar Atiku’s eventual return to America ended the long absence, but it did not erase the documentary record accumulated over those years.

The contemporary relevance lies in Atiku’s continuing pursuit of the presidency. A candidate is entitled to place his experience and achievements before the electorate, but experience cannot be selectively invoked. If his tenure as Vice President is offered as evidence of preparedness for the presidency, significant financial questions arising from the same period are equally legitimate subjects of scrutiny.

This is particularly so where financial transparency is concerned. The President exercises enormous authority over public finance, procurement, appointments and the institutions responsible for combatting corruption and financial crime. Nigerians are therefore entitled to expect anyone seeking that office to provide credible explanations for significant financial transactions appearing in official governmental records.

More than two decades have passed since many of these transactions occurred, but age alone does not render them irrelevant when the public official associated with the record continues to seek the Presidency. If the characterisations contained in the American records are inaccurate or incomplete, documentary evidence remains the strongest answer. The surest way to dispel a shadow created by financial transactions is to illuminate the transactions themselves.

The title of the Senate chapter therefore retains its significance: “Abubakar Case Study: Using Offshore Companies to Bring Suspect Funds into the United States.” It captures the larger issue beyond Siemens: the movement of substantial funds through offshore corporations and American bank accounts associated by the Senate investigation with the wife of a serving Nigerian Vice President.

Ultimately, this is a question of transparency and accountability. Atiku’s experience, political longevity and record in government are properly part of the debate over his presidential ambition. So too are the financial questions documented by official governmental institutions from the period in which he served as Vice President.

The American records should neither be exaggerated nor ignored. But after the necessary distinctions are made, important questions remain about the provenance of the money, the purpose of the offshore structures, the basis of the payments, their ultimate beneficiaries and Atiku’s knowledge of them.

For a man seeking the Presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, those questions invite clear, comprehensive and documentary answers. Until they are satisfactorily addressed in the public domain, the US Senate’s Abubakar case study and the shadow of the Siemens affair will remain part of the historical record against which Atiku Abubakar’s presidential ambition is scrutinised.

Kayode Oladele is a Nigerian-US attorney, former Member of the House of Representatives and former chairman of the House Committee on Financial Crimes.