Muhammadu Dikko Yusufu

Who is Muhammadu Dikko Yusufu?

Alhaji Muhammadu Dikko Yusufu is a Nigerian policeman, public servant and politician. Muhammadu Dikko Yusufu rose to the position of Inspector General of the Nigerian Police, a post he held from 1975 to 1979 during the military rules of Generals Murtala Mohammed and Olusegun Obasanjo. He was appointed chairman of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas in 1994. In 2003, he ran as a presidential candidate.

Dikko Yusufu was chairman of Nigeria LNG in 1994 when a consortium led by Halliburton's KBR subsidiary was bidding for a contract to construct a LNG export facility in competition with the US corporation Bechtel. In a letter to Yusufu in September 1994, the oil minister Don Etiebet said that the NLNG board had "seriously tinkered with the integrity of the pending contract award". He considered that there had been breaches of commercial confidentiality, that may have benefited the consortium led by KBR.

During a probe into alleged bribes by KBR, a London based consultant, Mr Jeffrey Tesler said he had advanced money to Muhammadu Dikko Yusufu in the form of a repayable loan. The $70,000 loan was made during a visit by Yusufu to London in 1998 or 1999. Attempts were made to implicate US Vice-President Dick Cheney in the corruption scandal, which involved over $180m of bribes on behalf of a consortium led by Halliburton.