A United Kingdom-based anti-corruption group, Global Witness, has confirmed that the attorney-general of the federation (AGF) and minister of justice, Mr Mohammed Adoke (SAN), lied to it when he claimed in a letter he sent to it that the House of Representatives had cleared him of all infractions involved in the controversial Malabu Oil deal.
LEADERSHIP had earlier obtained the letter the anti-corruption watchdog is referring to and exclusively reported that Adoke had claimed that he had been exonerated by the House of any wrongdoing in the role he played in the alleged fraudulent transfer of about N151 billion in the said deal.
LEADERSHIP had exclusively reported that the 70-page report of the House of Representatives committee set up on the Malabu Oil deal had indicted Adoke, Shell and ENI for their involvement in the matter .
But in a statement issued yesterday, accompanied by a copy of the letter posted on the organisation’s website, Global Witness said it decided to go public on the issue in the “interest of transparency and accuracy” since the content of the letter in question has been reported in the media.
LEADERSHIP’s exclusive report published last week was based on the content of the letter in which it obtained from the UK anti-corruption NGO and was written by Mr Adoke, using Nigeria’s letterhead.
Despite such official communication, the group said the honourable AGF lied to it.
The NGO’s statement posted on its website reads in part: “To set the record straight, we can confirm that the letter referred to in these articles was indeed sent to us. We also confirm that, in his letter, the attorney-general stated that “the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria had instituted a probe into the [OPL 245] transaction and, at the end, they were satisfied that there was no infraction of the Constitution or any other Nigerian law”.
Global Witness said the attorney-general himself signed the letter, which was dated May 20, 2013.
In the said letter, Adoke also claimed that the role of the federal government in transferring money to Malabu Oil and Gas, a fraudulent company established in 1998 to illegally appropriate the lucrative oil block, “did not breach the constitution or any extant law and was approved by all relevant authorities and persons”.
For the above reason, Adoke said, he is “unable to justify the call for the investigation of the officials of the Ministry of Finance or indeed any person or authority”.
With the release of this correspondence by Global Witness, the stack of lies and cover-ups, apparently built by Mr Adoke to cover his dubious involvement in the Malabu Oil deal, is beginning to crumble as he is having problems convincing Nigerians that the deal was done in good faith.
A report recently submitted by the House committee that investigated the deal is yet to be debated on the floor of the House.
But, according to Global Witness, Mr Adoke wrote the letter in response to the organisation’s May 1, 2013, letter to the minister of finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, requesting amongst other matters that she investigate the role of the finance ministry officials in requesting transfers of funds received from the sale of OPL 245, as the controversial oil block is called.
LEADERSHIP had in its earlier reports exposed Adoke’s many lies in desperate efforts to cover up his role in what can be described as one of the largest single fraudulent deals in Nigerian history.
However, based on the Global Witness’ statement, it is clear that the House of Reps never at any time cleared Mr Adoke of complicity in the Malabu deal, which saw the federal government transfer tens of billions of naira into accounts controlled by an ex-convict and former petroleum minister, Dan Etete.
“The money, $1.1 billion, was paid by Shell and ENi into Nigeria’s offshore accounts for the oil block. The transfer of the money into Mr Etete’s Malabu accounts was authorised by Mr Adoke and the minister of state for finance, Yerima Ngama. The transfer was hurriedly done a day before Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was to resume work as finance minister.
Earlier investigations had exposed how the company was fraudulently established in 1998 with Mr Etete assuming the role of a fictional character, and emerging a shareholder of a company he awarded the lucrative oil block to, in violation of Nigerian law.
Etete, convicted for money laundering in France, currently controls Malabu, although its ownership is being disputed by others including Mohammed Abacha, the son of late dictator Sani Abacha.
On July 16, 2013, the House ordered Mr Adoke to appear before its Committee on Justice over the letter.
UK Probes Shell, ENI over money laundering on oil deal
In a related development, the Royal Dutch oil giant Shell and Italy’s oil major ENI are being investigated by the British government for alleged money laundering over the Malabu Oil deal . The two oil firms with huge investment value in Nigeria are suspected to be connected to a money-laundering allegation related to the OPL 245 they bought from Nigeria for $1.3 billion.
Most of the cash they paid was discovered to have ended up in a company linked to a former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete.
According to report by Reuters, the probe concerned an offshore block OPL 245, which industry sources say contained up to 9.23 billion barrels of crude – more than enough to keep China running for two and a half years.
“The proceeds of crime unit is investigating a money-laundering allegation in the UK in connection with OPL 245. The investigation is at an early stage,” a UK spokesman said, according to Reuters.
Transparency campaigners, who asked the UK to look into the matter, asserted that Shell and ENI used the Nigerian government as a go-between to obscure the fact that they were dealing with former oil minister Dan Etete, who also has a 2007 money-laundering conviction in France related to bribes he was alleged to have taken when in government.
In his capacity as oil minister, Etete awarded block OPL 245 in 1998 for a payment of just $2 million to Malabu Oil and Gas, a company in which he played a prominent role. The critics claimed that Shell and ENI, which haven’t been accused of any legal wrongdoing, wanted to distance themselves from Etete, given his reputation and his involvement in the original award of the oil block to Malabu.
A Shell spokesman told Reuters it had purchased the block from the government, making no payment to Malabu, and that it acted transparently and in accordance with Nigerian law. ENI declined to comment to Reuters, but it told shareholders in May that the transaction was with the government, not Malabu.
The report said that while Shell and ENI claimed they bought the block from the Nigerian government, for which they paid it $1.3 billion in 2011, Nigeria government maintained it was helping resolve an ownership dispute over the block between Shell and Malabu and immediately transferred $1.09 billion from the sale to Malabu while the government retained the remainder.
Etete had awarded the block to Malabu during the rule of military dictator Sani Abacha, whose son Mohammed and other close allies were shareholders in the company, Reuters said, adding that the deal was later annulled after the death of Abacha by a new government that judged the award improper.
In a UK court case brought by Emeka Obi against Malabu for unpaid fees relating to his help in brokering the Shell/ENI deal, the judge in that case, Justice Elizabeth Gloster, concluded in her ruling last week that, “From its incorporation and at all material times Etete had a substantial beneficial interest in Malabu.”
Etete said he was only a consultant to the company, but he represented the company in the court case and in all negotiations with the oil majors, and he told the court he was the sole signatory to its accounts. Documents relating to Obi’s London case showed that both Shell and ENI met several times with Etete to negotiate the deal.
An email from a Shell employee to another middleman recounted how he met Etete for face-to-face negotiations over “lots of iced champagne”, Reuters said. Obi said in court he approached ENI on Malabu’s behalf on Dec. 24, 2009, and introduced Etete to an ENI representative to discuss the deal.
Global Witness campaigner Tom Mayne said: “It’s obvious from the meetings Shell and ENI both had with Dan Etete that they knew he was the person to speak to and then agreed that the deal be structured in such a way that it went through the government.”
Babatunde Oluajo, national secretary of Zero Corruption Coalition, told Reuters his Nigerian campaign group had asked the UK government to look into the matter. “In regard to our commitment to the fight against corruption in Nigeria … we wish to … formally request for a full investigation into the activities of … companies and individuals in the procurement of the OPL 245 in Nigeria,” reads a letter the group sent to the UK High Commissioner on July 5.
Nigerian lawmakers also began investigating the deal last week to ascertain if attorney-general Mohammed Adoke, who helped finalise the deal with Eni and Shell, had acted properly, as his involvement only came to light in the London court case.
Adoke said he was acting in the interests of all parties to facilitate a deal and end the long-running ownership dispute over the oil block. He also said in a press report last week that resolving the dispute would help the government attract investment into the oil and gas sector.
The investigations highlighted the regulatory risks faced by oil companies doing business in African countries with a history of weak governance and endemic corruption. In the five years Abacha was in power, he liberally dished out oil blocks to political allies and is suspected of having enriched himself to the tune of about $4 billion before he died.
Malabu had been registered on April 24, 1998, five days before Etete awarded it block OPL 245. Less than two months later, Abacha died. Though Malabu’s original shareholders had been Abacha’s son and allies – and Etete himself, according to the British judge in Obi’s court case – the company secretary Rasky Gbinigie told the court he had lost all the documents showing who owned it now.
The ownership of OPL 245 had also been unclear ever since the government annulled the initial award to Malabu in 2001, and then awarded it first to Shell and then back to Malabu after a series of court cases. Shell was still pursuing action to recover the block when it finally struck the deal to buy it with ENI in 2011.
