Development that was leaked in July said French authorities lacked the
resources to fight possible corruption in big export contracts.
Prosecutors had originally sought to have the Safran case dismissed,
but did not lodge any formal request at the trial in June. The court
let off two of the company's executives for whom the prosecutors had
sought a suspended sentence of up to 18 months and fines of 15,000
Euros each.
Like all members of the OECD, France is part of the convention which
criminalises bribery of foreign officials.
The Federal Government had in 2001 awarded a contract worth $214m to a
consortium led by French firm, Sagem, for the production of identity
cards for all Nigerian citizens.
The contract was marred in 2003 by allegations that Nigerian officials
collected more than $2m bribes to influence the award of the contract.
The case involving former Internal Affairs Ministers, the late Chief
Sunday Afolabi and Alhaji Mahammed Shatta; former Labour Minister,
Hussain Akwanga and a former PDP National Chairman, Dr. Okwesilieze
Nwodo, has not been resolved.
Only a few Nigerians received identity cards under the scheme.
Nwodo was among Nigerian officials arrested, arraigned and detained in 2003.
He was prosecuted alongside others indicted in the scam, but the case
was struck out on technical grounds but was not discharged.
The National Identity Management Commission established by the NIMC
Act of 2007 has taken over the functions, assets and liabilities of
the Department of the National Civil Registration which handled the
identity card contract.
Attempts to speak with the Director-General of NIMC, Dr. Chris
Onyemenem, on Wednesday proved abortive as he neither picked calls to
his mobile phone nor replied text messages sent to him on the issue.
When contacted on Wednesday, the Head of Media and Publicity,
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Wilson Uwujeren,
promised to get back to our correspondents since the issues concerned
took place "as far back as 2003." culled from punchng.com