Malabu $1.1 billion deal: Adoke indicts Obasanjo, says ex-president authorised first agreement

- A former Attorney-General of the Federation, Bello Adoke, has indicted former President Olusegun Obasanjo that he authorised first agreement in Malabu deal

- Adoke said the anti-graft agency allegedly singled him out for persecution when other former high-level government officials, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo

A former Attorney-General of the Federation, Bello Adoke, has petitioned the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, imploring the nation’s number one law enforcement official to call the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to order.

Premium Times reports that Adoke said the anti-graft agency allegedly singled him out for persecution when other former high-level government officials, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, took some of the critical decisions that culminated in the controversial $1.1 billion Malabu transactions.

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“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 appeal 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.

He queried why the EFCC had not invited those officials, especially since they didn’t deny their alleged roles.

EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, could not be reached for comments Sunday night. His known telephone lines were switched off.

Mr Adoke, again, absolved himself of any wrongdoing, saying he saved Nigeria more than $2 billion in damages that stemmed from arbitration claims instituted against the Nigerian government at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes over the OPL 245 block, which is believed to hold more than 9 billion barrels of crude oil and even more volumes of natural gas.

Mr Adoke was instrumental to Nigerian government’s involvement in the suspicious Malabu Oil deal, which saw Shell and Agip-Eni paying money into an escrow account of the Nigerian government to settle a firm with a questionable history.

Mr Adoke authorised the transfer of the $1.1 billion paid by Shell and Eni into private accounts of Mr. Etete, who further transferred a large percentage to Mr. Abubakar. Investigations suggested that Mr. Abubakar might have acted as a front for officials of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, including Mr. Adoke. ‎

Shell, Agip-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, Agip-Eni, and their executives alongside other 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.

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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 Agip-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.

Source: Legit.ng