Sale of Vmobile Shares, Victor Attah and NITEL
A few weeks ago EFCC celebrated the investigations into the alleged money laundering of the proceeds of the sales of Akwa-Ibom State Vmobile shares by the former Governor of the State, Arch Victor Attah. We are aware of the various petitions addressed to you as well as other government officials on the Interconnection fraud in the telecommunications sector through which more than N500 billion of earnings due to NITEL were laundered to other telecoms operators. The online magazines, with bias to Nigerian News and events, gave generous space to this allegation but there appears to have been no action taken by you on the issue. It is however not rocket science to conclude that Vmobile was a beneficiary of the N500 billion NITEL laundered funds and the Vmobile money laundering that you are investigating is also a child or product of money laundering and it is only fair that this is made perfectly clear during any investigation of the Vmobile shares scam.
We expect that a thorough investigation by you should have revealed that the same person who persuaded Victor Attah to invest the initial $20 million of Akwa-Ibom state funds in Vmobile is a principal actor in the drafting and introduction of the fraudulent 2001 Interconnection Agreement which denied NITEL and the Federal Government that owns NITEL or substantial shares in NITEL at any point in time, hundreds of billions of Naira. Please note that there was in place a 1997 Interconnection Agreement approved by Government which was reportedly destroyed or abandoned to enable the implementation of the fraudulent 2001 agreement.
The motive was the person's personal acquisition of substantial Vmobile shares which entitled him to a position on the board of Vmobile. The person in question also own substantial shares in other telecommunications companies which benefited in the organized laundering of funds due to NITEL with the fraudulent Interconnection Agreement. It will therefore be gross perversion of justice if these facts are ignored as some persons have already been indicted in London on this issue.
It has been widely publicized in the mass media that the new Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission Dr Juwah , was a former employee of MTS. For your information MTS had a Joint Venture Agreement with NITEL about 20 years ago. Despite the JV agreement with NITEL which MTS relied on for the free use of NITEL Networks for several years as Ndukwe again arranged since 2001, MTS was forced to leave Nigeria and abandoned thousands of subscribers when it could not pay for the use of NITEL Networks for Interconnection when NITEL challenged the free use of its Network. Unlike now, NITEL had the full backing of the Federal Government. 15 years latter Nigerians are celebrating the free use of NITEL Networks through fraudulent Interconnection Agreement with the acquiescence of the EFCC after the fraud has been brought to its attention. This shows that the Federal Government paid more attention to corporate fraud without the EFCC than presently with the EFCC. This confirms full Government backing for corruption in Nigeria now as silence of Government officials can now be bought on serious corporate fraud.
In conclusion the Value of the sold Vmobile shares was a product of crime because the astronomical rise in the value was because of unearned income from the proceeds of revenues that are legitimately NITEL's. To proceed with indictments on the Vmobile shares scam without due cognizance of this fact will, in our opinion be perversion of justice.
We shall not be surprised at your continued silence on the issue because corruption is now KING in Nigeria but once in a while Nigerians are entertained with some show trials .
We hope that you will avail Victor Attah the benefit of this information as he can easily identify the unnamed person in this letter and any other role the person may have played in the Vmobile shares scam Yours sincerely Nitel Collective (the voice of the suffering Nitel Staff and pensioners)