Opinion
U.S. SENATE DETAILS STEALING BY AFRICAN LEADERS
Posted by Chika Onyeani, Feb. 10, 2010

More than 80% of Equatorial Guinea's population is estimated to be living in less than $1 a day, although the GDP of the country has soared to over $37,000 a year, due to large oil deposits in the country.  You would expect that a country with this large GDP would have a very high standard of living, but because of the high corruption of the ruling family, Equatorial Guineans are not experiencing any of the wealth in their country.

The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has chronicled its findings on just four African countries, and how officials in these four countries have stolen and transferred millions of their peoples money into their private accounts in the United States. Starting with Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the son of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the president of Equatorial Guinea, the committee detailed how he transferred a total of $110 million to his different accounts in U.S. banks.  The committee found how Mr. Obiang circumvented the Patriots Act which came into effect after 9/11 to exploit some of the loopholes in the act to hire lawyers, real estate agents as well as escrow agents to carry out his dirty deeds.

According to the New York Times of February 3, 2010, "Mr. Obiang, the subject of a criminal investigation into charges of money laundering, bribery and extortion, also employed Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, a law firm now known as Sidley Austin, to help him buy a $38.5 million Gulfstream G-5 jet in 2005, the report says...

The report says two American lawyers, Michael Berger and George Nagler, helped Mr. Obiang circumvent controls at the banks by setting up accounts for shell companies with names like Beautiful Vision, Unlimited Horizon and Sweet Pink, named on honor of the rapper Eve, Mr. Obiang’s girlfriend at the time.

Mr. Obiang, Equatorial Guinea’s minister of agriculture and forestry, used the accounts to pay his personal expenses, including chefs and butlers for his home in Malibu, Calif., and bills at Ferrari of Beverly Hills and Dolce & Gabbana, receipts cited in the report show. He also arranged for Mr. Berger to be invited to the 2007 “Kandy Halloween Bash” at the Playboy Mansion, the report says.

It says Mr. Obiang hired two American real estate agents to help him buy the $30 million home in Malibu, with suspect money transferred from Equatorial Guinea."

Writing for Human Rights Watch, Arvind Ganesan wrote, "In 2004, he spent about $8.45 million for mansions and luxury cars in South Africa. His only known income was a $4,000 monthly salary as a government minister. His $43.45 million in spending on his lavish lifestyle from 2004 to 2006 was more than the $43 million the government spent on education in 2005."

The brazenness with which Mr. Obiang has carried out the looting of the Equatorial Guinea's treasury, without remorse, is due to the pampering he and his father have received in the hands of U.S. officials, especially during the Bush years.  A Senate investigation in 2004 found that Mr. Obiang's father and President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, found $700 million he had stashed away in Riggs Bank in Washington, DC and held in accounts in the name of Obiang, his family and clan.  According to the report, most of the money was carried in a million dollars at a time in shrink-wrapped bundles. The United States fined Riggs Bank the sum of $41 million, leading to subsequent collapse of the bsnk.

Even in the midst of these investigaions, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice called Obiang a "good friend" of the United States.

In another case that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found was that of the former Vice President of Nigeria, Mr. Atiku Abubakar who the committee reported that “from 2000 to 2008, Ms. Douglas (Jennifer Abubakar) helped her husband (Atiku Abubakar) bring over $40 million in suspect funds into the United States, including at least $1.7 million in bribe payments from Siemens AG, a German corporation, and over $38 million from little known offshore corporations, primarily LetsGo Ltd. Inc., Guernsey Trust Company Nigeria Ltd., and Sima Holding Ltd.”

The report specifically stated as follows: "Of the $40 million in suspect funds, $25 million was wire transferred by offshore corporations into more than 30 U.S. bank accounts opened by Ms. Douglas, primarily by Guernsey Trust Company Nigeria Ltd., LetsGo Ltd. Inc., and Sima Holding Ltd. The U.S. banks maintaining those accounts were, at times, unaware of her PEP status, and they allowed multiple, large offshore wire transfers into her accounts.

"As each bank began to question the offshore wire transfers, Ms. Douglas indicated that all of the funds came from her husband and professed little familiarity with the offshore corporations actually sending her money. When one bank closed her account due to the offshore wire transfers, her lawyer helped convince other banks to provide a new account.

"In addition, two of the offshore corporations wire transferred about $14 million over five years to American University in Washington, D.C., to pay for consulting services related to the development of a Nigerian university founded by Mr. Abubakar. American University accepted the wire transfers without asking about the identity of the offshore corporations or the source of their funds, because under current law, the University had no legal obligation to inquire."

Mr. Abubakar has dismissed the findings as a rehash of earlier reports tying him to the disgraced and former congressman from Louisiana Mr. William Jefferson, who had said that he had been  given $100,000 to bribe the Nigerian Vice President.  But, this new accusation has nothing to do with the Jefferson case.  Right now, the Nigerian press is focused on what is happening in the country with the absence of the President to pay much attention to Abubakar's money laundering of this magnitude, but the former Vice President should be made to come clean as to how he was able to acquire over $54 million to transfer to America.

With regards to Angola, the report said, "Pierre Falcone, a PEP through his close association with the President of Angola and appointment as an Angolan Ambassador, was able to use personal, family, and U.S. shell company accounts at a U.S. bank in Arizona to bring millions of dollars in suspect fundinto the United States and move those funds among a worldwide network of Falcone accounts, despite his status as an arms dealer and a long history of involvement in criminal proceedings in France.

"Dr. Aguinaldo Jaime, using his authority as head of the Angolan Central Bank, attempted without success, on two occasions in 2002, to transfer $50 million in government funds to a private account in the United States.

The question is what moral obligation do we, as Africans in the Diaspora, have in combating these looting of the treasuries of the different African countries.  We have already seen that the United States doesn't feel any obligations in bringing these perpetrators of money laundering to account, especially in ensuring that the money is returned to the rightful owners, the masses of Africans in Africa.  Even, as we have seen, the U.S. considers somebody like President Obiang a good friend of the United States.  On the other hand, these individuals are getting away with murder, as in Africa, they hold powerful positions and cannot be questioned by the indigenes, questioning of which could lead to their deaths. 

It is our duty as Africans in the Diaspora to pressure the United States to stop having a double-standard in policies towards Africa.  While this writer has consistently criticized the government of Zimbabwe, it is patently wrong to welcome President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, after finding that he looted %700 million from his country, while on the other hand using all means to force out Mugabe out of power.  This is injustice, and it has everything to do with the fact that Obiang presides over a country with a lot of oil while Zimbabwe is not.

Africans in the Diaspora must organize to pressure the U.S. government to seize whatever funds they find are brought into these country illegally by African leaders and return that money to Africa.  For instance, these is no reason the U.S. government cannot order the seizure of the mansion that President Obiang's purchased in California with suspect funds, sell it and return that return to the suffering people of Equatorial Guinea.  The same should happen with the $40 million found to have been transferred by Atiku Abubakar of Nigeria.  These individuals are thieves and must be treated as such.