NITEL sale: El-Rufai blasts Atiku over Pentascope contract

Former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Mallam Nasir El Rufai, has accused former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar of jumbling facts to free himself from the alleged non-transparent deals carried out under his leadership as the Chairman of Bureau of Public Enterprise, especially with the privatisation of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL). Atiku had, in an interview, accused El-Rufai of responsible for the failure of NITEL’s successful privatisation as a result of personal interest.
He said: “The Pentascope scandal was one of the issues investigated by the National Assembly and it accused El-Rufai of ignoring wise counsel by imposing the company on NITEL.
“Despite proven allegations that Pentascope was not financially capable and technically competent to handle NITEL management contract, the former Bureau of Public Enterprise Director-General (El- Rufai) ignored public outcry and forced the Dutch company on NITEL. “Before Pentascope came, NITEL was making an estimated N100 billion profit annually.
However, as soon as Pentascope took over, NITEL’s profits were nose-diving incredibly.” But in a statement signed yesterday by his Media Advisor, Mr. Muyiwa Adekeye, El Rufai said it was understandable that Atiku would be enduring some unease at the disclosures made in El Rufai’s recently-launched memoir: “The Accidental Public Servant” The statement reads: “The former vice-president’s media team has tried to engage in obfuscation about their principal’s serial interference with contract award processes that were detailed in the book.
“Against this, they have reproduced El Rufai’s assertion that Atiku did not meddle in privatisation processes, which are very different and distinct in nomenclature and substance from seeking contracts for friends. “Now that Atiku himself has spoken on the controversial NITEL GSM contract involving Ericsson and Motorola, it is obvious that the attempt at confusing issues persists. It is untrue that the NITEL GSM contract in question was split.
Rather it was awarded to Ericsson, but at the lower price submitted by Motorola because of Atiku’s intense lobby and smears deployed to advance Ericsson’s bid. Atiku and Abdullahi Yari, his then ADC, at different times spoke to El Rufai to favour Ericsson.
“It is Atiku’s responsibility to explain why he became an Ericsson salesman, although the investigations conducted by Motorola after the debacle makes clear he was not engaged in an altruistic mission.
This incident had diplomatic repercussions as the American government wrote to protest this loss by an American company that had submitted the cheaper bid. “Atiku persists in his laughable assertion that El- Rufai’s brother is a shareholder and member of Motorola’s board – something any person can research and confirm to be an outright falsehood.
On Pentascope, the statement said: “We see the same pattern of muddying the waters with falsehood. As Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP), Atiku gave his approval in writing on February21, 2003 for the management contract with Pentascope to be signed.
“The memo on which Atiku signed 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 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 April 28, 2003, shortly before El Rufai left the BPE to become a minister.”
The statement added: “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.
“When a former vicepresident asserts that NITEL was making N100 billion profit annually, the mind must boggle that someone so unconstrained by fidelity to facts had once been saddled with significant responsibilities. NITEL never made such profits