Following the filing of a nine-count charge against him over his role in the \u200eMalabu $1.1 billion Malabu oil deal by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke, has accused unnamed and vengeful powerful forces as his traducers.
\nHis words in a statement: “The charge of aiding the commission of money laundering offences preferred against me has finally confirmed the orchestrated plans to bring me to public disrepute in order to satisfy the whims and caprices of some powerful interests on revenge mission.”
\nThose charged with Adoke are former Petroleum Minister, Dan Etete, a businessman, Abubakar Aliyu as well as a former Minister of State, Finance, Mr. Yerima Ngama. Adoke and Ngama were alleged to have approved the transfer of about $1.1 billion into Nigerian accounts controlled by Mr. Etete.
\nThe said amount was said to have been paid by oil giants, Shell and ENI, \u200einto the Federal Government account for OPL 245 oil bloc, which was considered the richest in Africa.
\nAfter the transfer to Etete, over half of the money was paid to accounts of shady companies controlled by Aliyu.
\nAdoke’s full statement reads:RE: OPL 245 SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT AND THE FILING OF CHARGES AGAINST ME BY THE EFCC
\nMy attention has been drawn to the charges filed by the EFCC against\u00a0me and other named individuals and companies in respect of OPL 245Settlement Agreement involving Malabu Oil & Gas Limited and Shell
\nNigeria Ultra Deep Limited. The charge of aiding the commission of
\nmoney laundering offences preferred against me has finally confirmed
\nthe orchestrated plans to bring me to public disrepute in order to
\nsatisfy the whims and caprices of some powerful interests on revenge
\nmission.
\nI wish to reiterate that I acted within the actual and ostensible
\nauthority of the Office I occupied to broker a settlement between
\nMalabu Oil & Gas Limited and Shell Nigeria Ultra Deep Limited in order
\nto ward off the over US$2 Billion Dollars liability in damages for
\nbreach of contract which the country would have been exposed to in the
\nlikely event of the success of Shell Nigeria Ultra Deep Limited\u2019s
\nclaim before the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment
\nDisputes (ICSID).
\nThe Terms of Settlement ensured that the interests of the Federal
\nGovernment of Nigeria, Malabu Oil & Gas Limited and Shell Nigeria
\nUltra Deep Limited were duly acknowledged and provided for in the
\nSettlement Agreement. The Federal Government of Nigeria was entitled
\nto the Signature bonus which was duly paid; Malabu Oil & Gas Limited
\nsurrendered its title to OPL 245 for a consideration and Shell Nigeria
\nUltra Deep Limited was re-allocated OPL 245 which its had previously
\nsubstantially de-risked in consideration for withdrawing their over
\nUS$ 2 Billion Dollars claim for breach of contract against the Federal
\nGovernment of Nigeria.
\nSince the Parties aforementioned, faithfully discharged their
\nrespective obligations under the Settlement Agreement, one cannot
\ncomprehend how the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation
\nwhich brokered the Settlement was expected to renege from the
\nagreement by denying Malabu Oil & Gas Limited the benefits associated
\nwith the relinquishing of their title to OPL 245 already warehoused in
\na joint FGN\/Shell Escrow account, or to prevent the subsequent
\nre-allocation of the relinquished OPL 245 to Shell Nigeria Ultra Deep
\nLimited when the company had already furnished consideration for it
\nto the Federal Government of Nigeria.
\nI am of the respectful view that it should be clear to any person
\ndispassionately reviewing the transaction to confirm that I had no
\npersonal interest in the transaction; I did not take any benefit from
\nit, I had requisite approvals from the President and Commander in
\nChief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to broker the settlement and
\nexecute the OPL 245 Settlement Agreement. I am therefore unable to
\nrationalize the charge of aiding the commission of money laundering
\noffences preferred against me by the EFCC. But be that as it may, I
\nhope to at the appropriate time make myself available to defend the
\ncharge for what whatever its worth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Following the filing of a nine-count charge against him over his role in the \u200eMalabu $1.1 billion Malabu oil deal by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke, has accused unnamed and vengeful powerful forces as his traducers. His words in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}