How Atiku Abubakar Lied About Pentascope Fraud

Controversial former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai is at it again. In his latest revelation about fraud and corruption during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, he said ex-Vice President, Atiku Abubakar lied over the imposing of the Pentascope management contract. 

El-Rufai said that Atiku, then Chairman of the National Council for Privatisation, gave a written approval to enter into a contractual agreement with Pentascope to manage NITEL on February 21, 2003.

El-Rufai was the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprise when the Federal Government entered into a contractual agreement with a Dutch firm, Pentascope, to manage the nation’s telecommunications firm, NITEL, on the eve of the privatisation carried out by the Obasanjo administration.

El Rufai whose allegations were contained in an electronic mail on Monday, signed by his Media Advisor, Mr. Muyiwa Adekeye, said that Atiku’s memo on the Pentascope’s management contract with NITEL dated February 20, 2003 was raised by a director of the BPE in charge of the duties of the Director-General at the time.

El Rufai said: “On Pentascope, we see the same pattern of muddying the waters with falsehood. As chairman of the National Council on Privatisation, Atiku gave his approval in writing on 21 February 2003 for the management contract with Pentascope to be signed.

“The memo on which Atiku minuted his approval, BPE/I&N/NT/MC/DG/280, is dated 20th February 2003, and was initiated by the director of BPE that was covering the DG’s duties at the time. By the virtue of the high office he then held, Atiku knows that Pentascope was not foisted on NITEL but emerged from a properly advertised and competitive selection process.

“After the failure of the first attempt to sell NITEL, it had been decided that there was the need for a management contractor to keep the momentum of preparing the company to operate like a private entity and to preserve its assets. Pentascope resumed in NITEL on 28 April 2003, shortly before el-Rufai left the BPE to become a minister.

“The Pentascope contract terms included obligations by the BPE to monitor the contract, and for the NITEL Board to set up an Executive Committee to supervise day-to-day operations in NITEL. Between the new BPE leadership that neglected its responsibilities, the NCP which Atiku chaired and which failed to supervise the BPE and the bureaucrats and politicians around the Ministry of Communications, the management contract was frustrated and terminated in 2005.”

El Rufai’s reaction followed an allegation by Atiku in a recent interview that el-Rufai, as the DG of the BPE defied wise counsel to foist the Pentascope management contract on NITEL.