EXCLUSIVE: Obasanjo speaks on Malabu $1.1 billion scandal, tackles Adoke

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday warned a former Attorney-General of the Federation, Bello Adoke, to cease further mention of his name in the controversial $1.1 billion Malabu Oil deal.
In an exclusive interview with PREMIUM TIMES from Addis Ababa, the former president said he considered the controversial award of OPL 245 oil field licence as the "height of corruption," and, as such, could not have participated in negotiations that led to it.

"I don't support that kind of conduct," Mr. Obasanjo said in his first reaction to the intercontinental oil scandal that has haunted three administrations for nearly a decade.

The rebuttal came a day after Mr. Adoke distributed excerpts of a petition he sent to the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, alleging victimisation and persecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Mr. Adoke told his successor to call the anti-graft agency to order because he was not the only official who acted on behalf of Nigeria in brokering the Malabu Oil deal with international oil majors that included Shell and Eni.
He specifically mentioned Mr. Obasanjo's name, alongside his two successors and their appointees.
"I believe it is your responsibility to explain to the public who are being sold a fiction that the transaction started from President Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR under whose administration the Terms of Settlement were brokered with Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN, as the then Attorney General who executed the Terms of Settlement before the tenure of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR who approved the final implementation of the Terms of Settlement and my humble self who executed the resolution agreements," Mr. Adoke said in the petition dated March 6.
"This is more so as the settlement and its implementation were situated in the Federal Ministry of Justice," he added.


The petition was sent three days after Mr. Adoke accused the EFCC of lending itself to manipulation by powerful political interests, after the anti-graft agency slammed fresh charges of money laundering against him and one of his associates, Aliyu Abubakar, accusing them of sharing millions of dollars in fraudulent proceeds.

In the charges, filed at the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, the EFCC said Mr. Adoke exchanged more than $2.2 million at a bureau de change in Abuja as part of his share of the controversial $1.1 billion 

Malabu Oil deal.
Prosecutors believe Mr. Abubakar‎, the controversial owner of A.A. Oil Ltd., acted as middleman in the questionable deal.
The EFCC said in the court filings that Mr. Adoke took delivery of $2,267,400 on September 16, 2013, and immediately got money changers to convert it to naira.
Based on the prevailing exchange rate at the time, Mr. Adoke made N345.2 million after successfully converting the funds. He subsequently deposited the money into a Unity Bank account to offset an outstanding overdraft of N300 million, court documents showed.
But Mr. Adoke denied the allegations, saying the EFCC knew the facts of the case but was deliberately muddling them up to confuse "gullible" Nigerians and malign him.
In his petition to Mr. Malami, the former AGF asked his successor to save him from "unwarranted attacks and dehumanising treatment" just because he "chose to serve" his "fatherland."
He told the attorney-general that some other former government officials took part in the controversial deal and gave approvals.
"It will be recalled that the Terms of Settlement encapsulating details of the Settlement between the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and Malabu Oil & Gas Limited (Malabu) was executed on 30th November 2006.
"The Terms of Settlement, which was later, reduced into a Consent Judgment of the Federal High Court; Abuja was brokered by our predecessor in office, Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN and signed on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria by the then Honourable Minister of State, for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Edmund Daukoru, during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR."
He wondered why the EFCC had not invited those officials, especially since they did not deny their alleged roles.
The spokesperson for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, could not be reached for comments Monday afternoon. His known telephone lines were switched off.
FIERCE DENIAL
But Mr. Obasanjo, who clocked 80 earlier this month, admonished Mr. Adoke to concentrate on rendering accounts of his actions while in public service and stop dropping his name in the matter.



"Adoke and others should not drag me into a matter I know nothing about," Mr. Obasanjo said. "If they have been asked to answer questions over decisions they took while in office, they should do that honourably.
"They should not bring Obasanjo into an Etete deal. I was not part of any such deal."

Mr. Obasanjo said it was inappropriate for any government functionary to "appropriate to himself or herself what he or she is in charge of."
"If I hold that view, I could not have approved a deal with Dan Etete. What Etete did is the height of corruption. He appropriated the asset to himself illegally, illegitimately and immorally," Mr. Obasanjo said.
PREMIUM TIMES had reported how Mr. Etete as petroleum minister in 1998 awarded the oil block to Malabu, a company which he partly owned.
The administration of Mr. Obasanjo granted approval for the re-award of OPL 245 block to Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd., but when he was reminded of this fact on Monday, the former president stood his ground, saying he could not recall assenting to such a deal.

"I can't remember giving approval that the block be given back to Etete," Mr. Obasanjo said.
Mr. Obasanjo challenged anyone to produce proof that he took part in returning the oil field to Malabu, saying Mr. Ojo and Mr. Daukoru might be in better position to explain what actually transpired.
"We gave it back to Malabu? On what ground? Do you have any such evidence?
"Ask Bayo Ojo and Edmund Daukoru what really happened because the stand I took at the time was unassailable.

"If Daukoru has evidence that I approved that the block be given back to Malabu or Etete, let him produce it.
"If it is proven that I indeed approved the deal, I will be willing to apologise to Nigerians. But we have to get to the bottom of it all," the former president said.

'PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL'
PREMIUM TIMES reporting had shown how Edmund Daukoru, the minister of state for Petroleum during the Obasanjo administration, wrote to Shell retrieving the block, and then re-awarding same to Malabu in what he described as a product of out-of-court settlement with Malabu.
That action triggered a massive lawsuit by Shell and Eni.
Available documents, including an award letter, signed by Mr. Daukoru, claimed that the former president authorised the return of OPL 245 to Malabu. Mr. Obasanjo says he doubts the integrity of the letters that emanated from Mr. Daukoru, now a traditional ruler in Bayelsa.
"We refer to the above subject matter and are delighted to convey to you that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces having concluded a review of your legal claims for the return of oil block 245 (OPL 245) has graciously approved and directed as follows:

"That the federal government of Nigeria is amendable to an out of course settlement of the claims comprised in the legal proceedings commenced by Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd. and consequently has agreed to settle your legal claims for the return of the oil block constituted as OPL 245.
"The said oil block 245 (OPL) shall from the date hereof and with immediate effect, be returned to MALABU OIL AND GAS LTD with full and total reinstatement of all its rights thereto.

"Any and all previous decision inconsistent with or purporting to deprive MALABU OIL AND GAS LTD of its rights over the totality of the concessions in the said OPL 245 shall stand absolutely and totally rescinded as if they had never been made," Mr. Daukoru said in the December 2, 2006 letter, with reference number: HMSPR/TA/008.
As part of the settlement, Mr. Daukoru said Malabu would withdraw its pending case against the Nigerian government from the courts and pay a total sum of $210 million for signature bonus including the $2 million previously paid by the firm.

Malabu never paid that signature bonus.
Mr. Dakouru also said Malabu "shall be free to assign, pledge or deal in any way with its restored rights over OPL 245, in whole or in part to any 3rd party" in accordance with Nigerian law.
To appease Shell, Mr. Daukoru said the Obasanjo administration had "decided to award Shell Nigeria Ultra Deep Ltd. a present concessionaire an alternative oil block with comparable potential and hydrocarbon prospectivity (sic)."

Indeed, in a letter dated December 1, 2006, which was also personally signed by him, Mr. Daukoru told Shell that it should back down on all claims to OPL 245, promising to grant the Dutch oil giant another field with similar crude potentials.

"Shell is to forego block 245 to Malabu while government provides a mutually acceptable substitute of comparable potential against the $210 million, which Shell has already paid or will be expected to pay as signature bonus," Mr. Daukoru said in the letter he addressed to Basil Omiyi, the Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Company at the time. The letter had reference number: HMSPR/TA/007.
PREMIUM TIMES could not reach Mr. Daukoru on Monday to clarify if he indeed got Mr. Obasanjo's approval to take the decisions and to weigh in on the integrity of that award letter.

However, knowledgable oil and gas sources who worked with the former minister wondered if he could have taken such actions without presidential approval.

The then attorney general, Bayo Ojo, could also not be reached on what legal opinion was available for the transaction. Aides familiar with his schedules said he was "traveling and will be expected back in town next week."
Shell and Eni paid the total of $1.1 billion in 2011 in a deal brokered by Mr. Adoke.

Mr. Adoke authorised the transfer of the $1.1 billion paid by the oil firms into private accounts of Mr. Etete, who further transferred a large part to 

Mr. Abubakar.
Investigators suggested Mr. Abubakar might have acted as a front for some officials of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, including Mr. Adoke. 
‎
Shell, Eni, Mr. Adoke and Mr. Etete, who initially approved the lease award of the OPL 245 while he was petroleum minister in 1998, have all denied wrongdoings.
But Italian prosecutors said late last year they had enough grounds to charge Shell, Eni, and their executives alongside Nigerians involved in the controversial deal for fraud in Milan.
In separate charges filed late 2016, the EFCC accused Mr. Adoke and Mr. Etete of defrauding Nigeria in the OPL 245 deal.


The Department of Petroleum Resources said last December that Mr. Adoke and other officials of the Jonathan administration who participated in the concession of the lucrative oil field to Shell and Eni did not follow due process.

Mr. Adoke, who is currently in the Netherlands for study, had maintained his innocence and pledged to make himself available for trial. He is however yet to make himself available for interrogation or attend trial since the matter began.
The Nigerian government in January repossessed the lucrative oil block, which is believed to hold about nine billion barrels of crude oil and even larger quantity of natural gas.

$1.6b Malabu Oil deal: Adoke names Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan, others

Former Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice Mohammed Bello Adoke has said that three former Presidents endorsed the Settlement Agreement on the controversial $1.6billion Malabu Oil Block.

They are Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the late Umaru Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

Adoke said none of the three Presidents has disowned the agreement.

He listed ex-ministers who played key roles in resolving the conflict on the oil block. They are a former AGF and Minister of Justice Bayo Ojo, former Minister of Petroleum Resources King Edmund Daukoru; ex-Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke and former Minister of Finance Olusegun Aganga.

He said the recent actions of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) tended to impugn the Settlement Agreement.

He insisted that the Ministry of Justice, which he superintended, only facilitated the Settle Agreement.

The EFCC has filed charges against Adoke, a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Chief Dan Etete, a businessman, Aliyu Abubakar and eight others over alleged $801million bribe in respect of the auctioning of Malabu Oil Block.

The others are Shell Nigeria Exploration Production Company Limited; Nigeria Agip Exploration Limited; ENI SPA; Malabu Oil and Gas Limited; Ralph Wetzels(ex- Director of SNEPCO), Casula Roberto(Italian) whilst being the Director of AGIP; Pujatti Stefeno(Italian) while being the Director in AGIP; and Burafato Sebastiano(Italian).

But Adoke, in a March 6 letter to Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mallam Abubakar Malami (SAN), asked the AGF to determine whether he had committed any offence for carrying out presidential approvals.

He asked Malami to tell Nigerians whether his predecessors in office from 2006 to May 2015 acted in the national interest when they brokered and implemented the Settlement Agreement.

He urged Malami to clarify to Nigerians the import of Section 5 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) with respect to the vesting of all the Executive powers of the Federation in the President to exercise by himself and or through his Ministers and appointees.

He said: “It will be recalled that the Terms of Settlement encapsulating details of the Settlement between the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and Malabu Oil & Gas Limited (Malabu) was executed on 30th November, 2006.

“The Terms of Settlement, which was later, reduced into a Consent Judgment of the Federal High Court; Abuja was brokered by our predecessor in office, Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN and signed on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria by the then Honourable Minister of State, for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Edmund Daukoru, during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

”When I assumed office on 10th April 2010, I inherited a Consent Judgment, which had undergone the scrutiny of three Presidents and Attorneys General. I was therefore restricted to the implementation of the Settlement as the issue of ownership of OPL 245 had already been resolved in favour of Malabu by the Terms of Settlement dated 30th November 2006 and the Consent Judgment of the FHC, Abuja.

“I also inherited an on-going Investor/State Arbitration at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Dispute (ICSID) in which SNUD had initiated arbitral proceedings against the FGN claiming damages in excess of $2billion for taking back OPL 245 re-awarded to them when Malabu’s title was initially revoked by the FGN. SNUD’s claims were also premised on the fact that they had substantially de-risked the Block.

“Malabu also instituted Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/420/2003, before the Federal High Court (FHC), Abuja to enforce its claim to OPL 245. Although, the suit was struck out by the FHC, Malabu lodged Appeal No. CA/A/99M/2006 before the Court Appeal, Abuja, Division.

“During the pendency of the Appeal, an amicable settlement was entered into between Malabu and the Federal Government and in compliance with the Terms of Settlement executed by the Parties on the 30th of November 2006, OPL 245 was fully and completely restored to Malabu in consideration for its withdrawal of the Appeal. (Copy of the Terms of Settlement dated 30th November is attached as Annexure ‘A’)

”Apparently dissatisfied with the Terms of Settlement between the Federal Government and Malabu, SNUD commenced arbitral proceedings against the decision of the Federal Government to restore/re-allocate OPL 245 to Malabu at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington DC, and made representations to government on the impending arbitration. It is instructive to note that SNUD’s claim before ICSID was in excess of US$2billion. It also commenced a suit against the Government before the Federal High Court, Abuja

“Although, several meetings were held between the Presidency, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, SNUD and Malabu, to resolve the dispute, no satisfactory outcome was achieved. Attempts were also made in 2007 to resolve the dispute by a Committee comprising the Honourable Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Minister of Energy, Group Managing Director, NNPC and DPR, during the administration of Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, without success

“ To resolve all the contending claims in a satisfactory and holistic manner, due regard was given to the Terms of Settlement of 30th November 2006 which had been reduced to Orders of the Court, the underlying policy of encouraging the participation of indigenous oil and gas companies in the upstream sector of the oil industry and the fact that Shell had substantially de-risked Block 245.

“To accommodate all these interests, a Resolution Agreement dated 29th April, 2011 was executed wherein the FGN agreed to resolve all the issues with Malabu in respect of Block 245 amicably and Malabu also agreed that it would settle and waive any and all claims to any interest in OPL 245. (Copy of the Resolution Agreement is attached as Annexure ‘D’).

“ In furtherance of the Resolution Agreement, SNUD and ENI agreed to pay Malabu through the Federal Government acting as an obligor, the sum of US$ 1,092,040,000 Billion in full and final settlement of any and all claims, interests or rights relating to or in connection with Block 245 and Malabu agreed to settle and waive any and all claims, interests or rights relating to or in connection with Block 245 and also consented to the re-allocation of Block 245 to Nigerian Agip Exploration Limited (NAE) and Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCO).

Adoke insisted that the Federal Government and its agencies and officials only served as facilitators of the Settlement Agreement.

He added: “It is therefore quite evident from the foregoing that the role played by the Federal Government, its agencies and officials in relation to Block 245 was essentially that of facilitator of the resolution of a long standing dispute between Malabu and SNUD over the ownership and right to operate Block 245.

“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.

”I wish to reiterate that the resolution of the lingering dispute over Block 245 was in furtherance of Government’s demonstrable commitment to attract investment in the oil and gas sector of the economy and encourage genuine investors (local and foreign) by creating the enabling environment for their business to thrive.

“ The Office of the Attorney General superintended over the process to ensure that the implementation was holistic by ensuring:

(a) that the requisite Presidential Approvals were sought and obtained;

(b) that all the relevant MDAs such the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Ministry of Finance, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) were involved in the resolution and final implementation of the Settlement;

(c) that the relevant Agreements such as OPL 245 Resolution and Re-allocation Agreements were duly executed by line Ministers and Departments;

(d) that the Signature bonus was duly paid to the Federal Government of Nigeria as required by law, and

(e) that disbursements from the escrow account were jointly approved by the Federal Government and SNUD.”

Adoke urged the AGF to find out why he was singled out by the Economic and Financial Crimes for prosecution.

He said: “ In view of the foregoing, I anxiously want to know where I went wrong that I have been singled out by the EFCC for prosecution.

”I wish to use this medium to appeal to the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation to be mindful of his overarching powers over public prosecution and the need to ensure that state institutions do not become persecutors or instruments in the hands of those pursuing personal vendetta.

“The Constitution and the traditions of our noble profession demand your oversight over public prosecution. Consequently, if you find that I had breached my Oath of Office or abused my office, please do not hesitate to bring me to justice.

“However, if it is the contrary, as I strongly believe, that certain individuals who had vowed to even scores with me are now being aided by state institutions such as the EFCC; I deserve protection from these unwarranted attacks and dehumanising treatment that I am being subjected to merely because I chose to serve my fatherland.”

Adoke faulted the filing of separate charges against him by the EFCC and asked Malami to speak out.

He said: “As the Chief Law Officer of the Federation, you have a public duty to speak on this matter so that Nigerians would know whether I acted mala fide or abused my office in the entire transaction leading to the final implementation of the Settlement.”

Source The Nation.