While the House of Representatives’ committee report into the Malabu
oil bloc deal was laid only last week, Attorney General and Minister of
Justice, Mohammed Adoke, who is amongst those central to the case,
raised a letter more than two months ago to a UK based watchdog,
claiming he had been exonerated.
Lawmakers have accused Mr. Adoke
of “lying” and disparaging the integrity of the House over a report they
have yet to consider; and on Tuesday, summoned the minister for
explanations in a new twist to the huge fraud in excess of N170 billion.
“How
can a minister lie to the whole world? If you as a minister could lie
outside and that is later found out, what impression will that leave on
us as a nation? And you say you are fighting corruption,” said Samson
Osagie, who raised the matter before the House on Tuesday.
Details of the minister’s letter to U.K.-based Global Witness,
obtained exclusively by PREMIUM TIMES, show how the minister labored to
convince the group of Nigerian officials’ innocence in the scandal; and
how he rebuffed calls for further inquiry into the matter.
Mr.
Adoke maintained in the letter that the role of the federal government
in the scandal – which involves what officials call multibillion naira
fraud by a former minister on a lucrative government oil bloc – was
strictly as an “obligor”, in this case an intermediary that only
mediated to settle a long drawn case capable of hurting the government’s
interest.
The controversial bloc, OPL 245, estimated to hold over
seven billion barrels of oil, was assigned by former petroleum
minister, Dan Etete, in 1998 to Malabu, a company lengthy investigations
by PREMIUM TIMES have shown to be partly his, although he has
repeatedly denied ownership.
After the Obasanjo administration
revoked the deal and awarded same to Shell, sparking a lengthy ownership
tussle with Malabu, both sides eventually settled in 2011 with the
title fully transferred to Shell and Eni, while the two companies agreed
to pay $1.1 billion to Malabu.
The money was paid into the
federal government account but was immediately transferred into accounts
held by Mr. Etete on the orders of Mr. Adoke and Yerima Ngama, the
minister of state for finance.
Global Witness, the U.K. group has
followed the case for months, including the House’s inquiry into the
matter in 2012; and from the letter, the group first reached Finance
minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, apparently seeking action against
officials of her ministry.
Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala communicated that
concern to Mr. Adoke, who, in turn reached the group on May 20,
dismissing their concerns and insisting emphatically that no Nigerian
law was breached in the fraudulent deal.
I got approval
“The transaction was completely transparent and received the approval of relevant authorities and persons,” Mr. Adoke wrote.
Then
he ruled: “While I thank you for the concern shown in respect of the
transaction, I wish to state that since the OPL 245 Resolution Agreement
did not breach the constitution or any extant law and was approved by
all relevant authorities and persons, I am therefore unable to justify
the call for investigation of the officials of the Ministry of Finance
or indeed any other person or authority.”
Lawmakers who spoke to
PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday rejected that claim. They said the report,
which is scheduled for discussion after the ongoing constitution
amendment, never absolved all government officials as Mr. Adoke claimed.
Mr.
Adoke repeatedly stated that he got the approval of ‘relevant
authorities and persons’ in the letter to the U.K. group, to authorise
the payment to the fraudulent company under shady circumstances. As
Justice Minister, Mr. Adoke reports only to President Goodluck Jonathan
and gets permission for his actions from the president.
While the
presidency has kept what could be described as criminal silence on the
Malabu fraud, PREMIUM TIMES earlier investigations had revealed how at
least one person with indirect links to the president got the largest
chunk of the government largesse.
Abubaka Aliyu, a man described
by anti-corruption officials as Mr. Corruption, received over half of
the $1.1 billion directly from Mr. Etete. Mr. Aliyu is a very close
business associate of fugitive Diepreiye Alamieyeseigha, a man for whom
President Goodluck Jonathan ignored Nigerians and foreign partners to
controversially grant presidential pardon.
Mr. Alamieyeseigha, who
is wanted after jumping bail in the U.K., is the benefactor of the
president having chosen the president as his deputy governor in 1999.
Mr. Jonathan later rose through the political ranks to become president
and both men have remained very close since then.
Perhaps worse
than Mr. Adoke’s continuous mention of getting ‘approval’ is the
barefaced lie Nigeria’s number one lawmaker told the U.K. group.
The lie
The Justice Minister drew the attention of the U.K. organization to the investigation into the matter by the House.
“You
may wish to note that the House of Representatives of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria had instituted a probe into the transaction and at
the end, they were satisfied that there was no infraction of the
constitution or any other Nigerian law,” he wrote.
The House of
Reps has not concluded its investigations and has expressed no
satisfaction with Mr. Adoke or the federal government’s role in the
Malabu fraud. A report by a committee that investigated the crisis is
yet to be debated or adopted on the floor of the House.
The
House’s reaction to summon Mr. Adoke’s on Tuesday was based on that
claim. Lawmakers called it a “falsehood” and an “outright lie” since the
recommendations of the report had not been adopted yet.
For the
legislators, the minister’s patently hasty claim was even more troubling
since the same Attorney General is reputed for disparaging and
rebuffing past resolutions or recommendations of the House. “So why is
he so quick at citing this particular case,” Mr. Osagie asked.
Lawmakers
involved in the investigations told PREMIUM TIMES that the minister
could only have been encouraged to tell a blatant lie to a foreign
organisation, based on his thinking that he ‘has settled,” the
leadership of the House investigation committee.
PREMIUM TIMES
learnt that the minister and the presidency applied pressure on the
lawmakers not to indict government officials involved in the shady
transaction and squarely put the blame on the foreign companies, Shell
and ENi, that bought the oil bloc. Some members of the committee that
investigated the fraud have also claimed that the final report, which is
yet to be debated by the House, was watered down, despite the seemingly
mild indictment of Mr. Adoke and the federal government.
Adoke responds
On
Wednesday, Mr. Adoke fired a brash response to the lawmakers, repeating
his claims of innocence, and subtly accusing the lawmakers of
compromising their positions to write the report that seeks to indict
him.
“The outrage against the Office of the Attorney General of
the Federation is understandable when viewed against his refusal to
compromise his office in order to satisfy the demands of certain
interests and individuals,” the minister’s spokesman, Ambrose Momoh,
said.
“We know those who have compromised their positions in order
to author the alleged ‘Report’ and their theatrical display for public
gallery. We also know those secretly beating the drums for masquerades
dancing in the market square. We shall confront them at the appropriate
forum.”
He wondered “why the ownership of shares in a private
company would generate sufficient interest among members of the
legislature so as to merit a resolution of a Committee that certain
persons or companies are entitled to ownership of shares in a private
company, when the Courts are the appropriate venue for the ventilation
of such disputes between shareholders (if any).”
Even so, the
minister contradicted himself in his own words, between the claims he
made in the letter to the U.K. group, and the statement he released
Wednesday through Mr. Momoh.
In the letter, Mr. Adoke said the
House committee was satisfied that the deal did not breach “the
constitution or any extant law” in Nigeria-a generalization that sought
to provide cover for all officials and offices.
But in his
statement Wednesday, having been challenged by the House, the minister
said he meant that the committee was satisfied with his explanation
regarding his personal role.
Serial liar
The
letter to the U.K. group would not be the first lie Mr. Adoke would
tell to legitimise his and the federal government’s action in the Malabu
fraud.
About a year before the May 20 letter, the minister had,
in his first official reaction to the Malabu fraud, told Nigerians that
the federal government acted right in the deal.
“To resolve all
the contending claims in a satisfactory and holistic manner,” the AGF
stated in the May, 2012 press statement, “due regard was given to … the
underlying policy of encouraging the participation (of) indigenous oil
and gas companies in the upstream sector of the oil industry.”
The
oil bloc, OPL 245 has now been sold, 100 per cent, to two foreign
companies, albeit their Nigerian subsidiaries, ensuing that, contrary to
Mr. Adoke’s claims, there is no indigenous participation.
“How
did Malabu ‘participate’ or guarantee ‘effective development of
indigenous capability’ order than the fact that it, with the help of the
FG, swindled Nigeria of at least a billion dollars by eventually
passing the bloc to a foreign concern already entrenched in the nation’s
oil and gas industry,” an oil industry source, knowledgeable about the
transaction, had told PREMIUM TIMES.
Few months later, Mr. Adoke
also stated in the 13th paragraph of his statement to the House
committee that “At all times material to the resolution of the dispute,
the federal government was not aware of any subsisting third party
interest in Malabu’s claim to OPL 245 and neither did any person or
company apply to be joined in the negotiations as an interested party.”
A
statement that turned out to be false as evidence earlier provided by
PREMIUM TIMES showed that not only was he and the federal government
directly knowledgeable of ‘subsisting third party interest,’ agencies on
whose board he sits, such as the Corporate Affairs Commission and the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, had already flagged Malabu and
Mr. Etete for fraudulent activities over OPL 245 long before the
federal government approved the transfer of tens of billions of naira to
the company.
Source: PREMIUM TIMES.
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