The United States government has warned Nigeria to carefully review the 16-count corruption allegations made against a former US vice president, Dick Cheney, in the Halliburton bribe-for-contract scandal, APA learnt in a statement the US embassy released in Abuja on Thursday.

The US Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, made the plea in Washington while fielding questions from some African journalists, including Nigeria, during a conference call.

Carson said in the statement that review was necessary to ensure that the allegations were not politically motivated, as opposed to a legitimate legal matter.

Asked if Cheney would be allowed to stand trial in Nigeria, Carson said charges laid should be carefully and deeply substantiated as they were “very serious.”

He said that the US authorities had been following the case closely and had spoken to the Nigerian authorities about it.

Before becoming US vice president, Cheney headed Texas-based oil service company, Halliburton, from 1995 to 2000.

According to reports, Houston-based engineering firm, KBR, a former Halliburton unit, pleaded guilty last year to charges that it paid $180 million in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to Nigerian officials to secure $6 billion in contracts for the Bonny Island Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project in the Niger Delta.

The Federal Government had filed a 16-count charge at an Abuja high court against Cheney over his alleged complicity in the scandal in the mid-90s.

The government had also approached an Abuja chief magistrate’s court for an arrest warrant to ensure that the former US vice president appeared to stand trial alongside some top officials of Halliburton.