I remember when the American Congressman Jefferson came to meet me about a fibre project he was promoting on behalf of US companies. I sent it to my technical people, who told me it wasn’t feasible. I told him so and he left.
When I travelled to the US later in the year, he came with a lady to meet with me. He later asked the lady to leave, upon which he presented the same file he brought to Abuja. I quickly told him “look, this thing will not work”. He left.
Unknown to me, he had collected money from people and said he will ‘persuade’ me to approve contracts in Nigeria. He had collected about $100,000 from people.
When the FBI arrested him, He was charged for fraud and Conspiracy to bribe a foreign official. They searched his house and found $90,000 in his fridge. He had spent $10,000 out of it. He was found guilty of fraud and jailed.
The Charge of bribery was dropped because he was found to have lied about that. Yet, I hear people link my name to Jefferson. It’s annoying sometimes. Why would I take $10,000 bribe from anyone, when my shares in my companies were worth hundreds of millions of dollars?
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