Nigerian investigators pursuing a U.S. Department of Justice request to look at dealings between U.S. Rep. William Jefferson and leaders of the Western African nation have accused Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar of diverting millions of dollars of public money into private accounts. On Thursday Abubakar, through aides, denied the allegations, which are not directly connected to the U.S. probe of Jefferson, D-New Orleans.
 | “... bribes would have to be paid to the vice president to help the Kentucky firm iGate Inc. win telecommunications contracts in Nigeria...” |
Abubakar became publicly linked to the Jefferson investigation in August 2005, when FBI agents raided the vice president's Maryland home at the same time they were searching Jefferson's residences in Washington and New Orleans. In an affidavit, the FBI said it expected to find $100,000 in marked bills that Jefferson allegedly had delivered to the vice president. The agents instead reported finding $90,000 of the cash jammed into the freezer of Jefferson's Washington home. The remaining $10,000 was accounted for: half of it was given as a loan to a Jefferson staffer and the rest returned to the government by the congressman's lawyers.
An FBI transcript of secretly recorded conversations between Jefferson and a cooperating witness quotes the congressman as saying that bribes would have to be paid to the vice president to help the Kentucky firm iGate Inc. win telecommunications contracts in Nigeria. Jefferson and Abubakar both have denied that any bribes were paid. Jefferson has not been charged and has said he did nothing wrong. |