Reuters has reported that Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party was able to visit Washington, United States\u00a0 two weeks ago to meet with top U.S. diplomats and lawmakers due\u00a0 to a temporary suspension of a travel ban.
\nThe news agency said the visa ban, which is still in place,\u00a0 was\u00a0 linked to decade-old bribery scandals, quoting\u00a0 people familiar with the matter.
\nThe U.S. administration has not commented on Atiku\u2019s status or his travel, but several U.S. diplomats and others familiar with the visit told Reuters the former vice president has been banned from entering the United States for the past several years after he figured prominently in two corruption cases.
\nFor Atiku\u2019s supporters, the fact he was able to visit Washington on Jan. 17 and 18 without being arrested was proof that the allegations were baseless.
\n\u201cIt is fake news, and we showed that,\u201d said Harold Molokwu, who heads the U.S. chapter of Atiku\u2019s People\u2019s Democratic Party of Nigeria.
\nSeveral U.S. government officials said the travel ban was waived temporarily by the U.S. State Department after lobbyists mounted a campaign among congressional lawmakers arguing that the administration should not snub the leading challenger to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in the Feb. 16 election.
\nOne person familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Atiku was allowed to enter because the United States saw little benefit to creating bad blood with the man who might be the next leader of Africa\u2019s most populous nation and the continent\u2019s biggest oil producer.
\nLobbyists hired by Atiku said they sought to overcome resistance at the State Department by securing support from members of Congress for the visit, as well as arguing that the top U.S. official for African affairs, Assistant Secretary Tibor Nagy, had an obligation to encourage democracy in the seventh most populous country in the world.
\n\u201cAssistant Secretary Nagy was pleased to meet with him and share the U.S. government\u2019s expectations that Nigeria\u2019s elections be free, fair, transparent, and peaceful, and reflect the will of the Nigerian people,\u201d a State Department official said, stressing the department had not requested the waiver.
\nBuhari first took power in a military coup in the 1980s but was democratically elected in 2015. He is seeking a second term in part on an anti-corruption platform.
\nAtiku\u2019s visa troubles stem from when he served as Nigeria\u2019s vice president, from 1999 to 2007.
\nHe figured prominently in the corruption trial of former U.S. Representative William Jefferson, who was accused of trying to bribe Atiku in an effort to expand a technology business in Nigeria. Jefferson was convicted in 2009 and sentenced to 13 years in prison. His sentence was subsequently reduced.
\nSeparately U.S. Senate investigators in 2010 alleged that one of Atiku\u2019s four wives helped him transfer more than $40 million in \u201csuspect funds\u201d into the United States from offshore shell companies.
\nAt least $1.7 million of that money was bribes paid by German technology company Siemens AG, according to Senate investigators. Siemens pleaded guilty to bribery charges in 2008 and agreed to pay a $1.6 billion fine.
\nAtiku has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Neither he nor his wife face criminal charges in the United States.
\n\u201cThese issues have been addressed several times in the past and we do not wish to comment further on them,\u201d a spokesman for Atiku said when asked about the corruption allegations.
\nHolland & Knight was hired by Atiku personally in December to help him secure a visa, in part by enlisting members of Congress to request one on his behalf, according to a lobbyist for the firm. It has been paid $80,000 so far.Ballard Partners was hired by Atiku\u2019s political party at a rate of $90,000 per month in September, before Atiku emerged as the party\u2019s candidate, according to U.S. disclosure filings.
\nAtiku\u2019s whirlwind visit to Washington last month was put together with the help of two U.S. lobbying firms.
\nThe firm\u2019s lobbyists worked to set up a meeting with Nagy, arguing it would show that the United States wanted to encourage free and fair elections in a country where graft is endemic.
\n\u201cWe are not asking the administration or anyone to take sides, but to merely demand the same level of freeness and fairness,\u201d Ballard lobbyist Jamie Rubin told Reuters.
\nAside from Nagy, Atiku met with business leaders at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and at least two Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives who specialise in foreign affairs, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas and Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey.
\nNeither requested a visa waiver for Atiku, spokespersons for the two congressmen said.
\nAtiku stayed at the Trump International Hotel, owned by the president, and met with several hundred Nigerian expatriates there, according to two people who attended the gathering.
\nThe luxury hotel is the subject of several lawsuits that allege Trump is violating an anti-corruption clause in the U.S. Constitution that limits the president\u2019s ability to accept gifts from foreign governments.
\nAtiku\u2019s supporters say they chose the hotel because they were able to book rooms at a discounted rate with only a few days\u2019 notice.
\n\u201cI think it was because of the availability of the space,\u201d said Uche Udemadu, an official with the U.S. chapter of the People\u2019s Democratic Party of Nigeria.
\nA spokeswoman for the hotel declined to comment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reuters has reported that Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party was able to visit Washington, United States\u00a0 two weeks ago to meet with top U.S. diplomats and lawmakers due\u00a0 to a temporary suspension of a travel ban. The news agency said the visa ban, which is still in place,\u00a0 was\u00a0 linked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}