Top Nigerian politician cleared of fraud charges

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A judge yesterday dismissed fraud charges against a top Nigerian politician and his former deputy who were both accused of diverting more than $244 million in bank loans.

The case comes weeks after protests decried government spending.

Justice Suleiman Belgore cleared former House Speaker Dimeji Bankole and his former deputy Usman Nafada at the Federal Capital Territory High Court in Abuja, saying that even though their actions were morally wrong, they were not illegal.

Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had accused Bankole and Nafada of conspiring to obtain the loans using the government's account, and then using that money to increase lawmakers' allowances and so-called "running costs" by $400,000 a year each, without approval.

Belgore said the unprecedented increment in lawmakers' allowances was "immoral, wrong and condemnable, especially given the abject poverty to which a great majority of Nigerians have been forced to live", but then said Bankole and Nafada had committed no crime.

Instead, he blamed the house clerk responsible for the management of the House of Representatives' account. The clerk had not been charged in this case.

The ruling comes after an overnight hike in the pump price of gasoline in the oil-rich West African country sparked nationwide protests earlier this month. Gas prices more than doubled as an immediate fallout of the government move aimed at cutting costs.

President Goodluck Jonathan on January 1 removed a subsidy that had kept gas cheap for more than two decades, saying that the

$8 billion saved was a short-term "sacrifice" that would enable Nigerians to have a better quality of life in the long-term. Jonathan ultimately compromised by restoring part of the subsidy after protesters questioned how a kleptocratic government could justify asking its citizenry to sacrifice.