Sopuruchi Onwuka

The pressing of charges on Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, now popularly known as Diezani, is set to burst a can of worms in the lingering intrigues that held millions of Nigerians spellbound over drawn out corruption case involving millions of dollars similar in scale to the massive stash-out by late General Sani Abacha.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom declared Tuesday that it has finally raised charges for prosecution of the 63-year-old Nigeria’s former Minister of Petroleum Resources who was arrested in London in 2015 on the auspices of the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari but was released on bail.

The British NCA stated that Diezani has been slammed with bribery charges on the suspicion of accepting financial rewards for awarding multi-million dollar oil and gas contracts. Though the practice of accepting rewards for contracts is commonplace and almost normal in Nigeria anyways.

The NCA stated that Diezani who reportedly lives in London’s St John’s Wood suburb is scheduled to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on October 2.

According to the NCA’s International Corruption Unit, the charges against Diezani are a milestone in a thorough and complex international investigation involving assets worth millions of pounds relating to the alleged offences.

Andy Kelly of the NCA stated that the said assets have been frozen as part of an ongoing probe, following indications that Diezani benefited from at least £100,000 ($127,000) in cash, chauffeur-driven cars, flights on private jets, luxury family holidays and use of multiple London properties.

Other benefits allegedly taken by Diezani as bribes include furniture, renovation work and staff for the properties, payment of private school fees, and gifts from designer shops such as Cartier jewellery and Louis Vuitton goods.

Kelly pointed at assets totaling $53.1 million already recovered by the US Department of Justice upon evidence provided by the NCA in March that linked the assets to the alleged corruption.

In the prevailing Nigeria, these allegations would be considered really too funny to warrant serious investigation.

The NCA stated that its agents had also worked closely with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of Nigeria which had earlier raided the formers ministers houses in Nigeria, confiscated everything reachable and further secured court order for forfeiture of the seized assets.

A Nigerian High Court, in response to prayers of the EFCC, had ordered final forfeiture of significant 56 houses linked to Diezani after the commission declared that it traced at least N47.2 billion and $487.5 million in cash and property to her.

According to the EFCC, a “search of one of Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s palatial residences in Abuja turned up boxes of gold, silver and diamond jewelry, worth several million pounds sterling.”

The Oracle Today reports that the EFCC also paraded “large quantities” of designer panties and brassiers as part of the loot recovered from the former minister of petroleum resources.

The EFCC listed the seized properties to include one at Banana Island, Lagos valued at $37.5 million; a block of six units of serviced apartments at No. 135 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos; another property at Ikoyi, Lagos; another at No. 7 Thurnburn Street, and another in Raymond Street, in Yaba, Lagos.

The anti-graft agency also listed a twin four-bedroom duplex on Plot 33, Block 112, Lekki Peninsula Residential Scheme Phase 1, Lekki, Lagos; a large expanse of land at Oniru, Lekki, Lagos; and a penthouse on the 11th Floor of Plot 8, Gerard Road Ikoyi, Lagos.

In Abuja, the EFFC listed seized Diezani’s assets to include Plot 10, Frederick Chiluba Close in Asokoro district; a mini estate on Plot 1205, Cadastral Zone B06, Mabushi Gardens Estate; and a property on Aso Drive, Maitama.

In Port Harcourt, the former minister is accused owning Heritage Court Estate, located on Plot 2C, Omerelu Street, Diobu Government Residential Area, Phase 1 Extension, Port Harcourt.

In Bayelsa State, the EFCC said it seized Diezani’s apartment with two blocks of flats situated on a large expanse of land on Goodluck Jonathan Road, Yenagoa.

EFCC said its investigators further extended their hunt to associates and relatives of Diezani and found documents at the office of her cousin, Donald Chidi Amamgbo, who allegedly owned 18 companies and properties in Britain and the US. The EFCC stated that Amambgo admitted that the companies had been registered to hold property on behalf of Diezani.

In London, a court ordered a freeze on five properties in the British capital linked to Diezani and a number of her associates.

In the United States, authorities announced investigation into £110 million assets belonging to associates of Diezani, including luxury apartments in New York.

The Nigerian anti-graft agency is also pushing processes at the office of the Attorney General of the Federation for extradition of the former minister. The EFCC also secured arrest warrant for Diezani despite knowing that the embattled woman is on bail in London and would not be allowed to travel under such conditions.

Diezani still pleads her innocence in all the accusations despite the piling evidences in Nigeria, United Kingdom and the United States. She has relentlessly refuted the accusations of corruption and is contesting numerous asset seizure orders issued by Nigerian judicial bodies. She also alleges that the EFCC is impeding her attempts to represent herself in criminal trials.

Diezani’s contentions conflict with the assertions of the EFCC that it was unable to serve the former minister with court summons because, according to the prosecutors, warrant of arrest was a necessary part of the process.

Thus, most of the asset seizures appear to rely on ex parte court orders!

The impending trials might therefore set the crucial stage for unveling details of the intrigues propelling the lingering cases.

For Diezani, the UK trial will necessarily clear a pathway for either her conviction or exculpation. Either way, what appears to be the primary target of the Nigerian government in the case is to mop up all hanging funds to finance the budget. Every forex repatriated in the process would be crucial to the Tinubu government in taming inflation and refloating the Naira.

The APC federal government has been in desperate search for all bypassed funds after the Buhari’s administration swept the country clean of cash before handing over. So, every government agency in the country, including the EFCC, is visibly scrambling to assist the new president with any level of funding to drive its fiscal plans.

Like the late General Sani Abacha whose legacy loots kept sustaining subsequent administrations of the federal government, the EFCC might squeeze more funds from the former petroleum minister to assist in the prevailing forex illiquidity in the country. This explains the striking coincidence between the change of government in Nigeria and the reactivation of prosecution process on an arrest made in the UK in 2015.

But unlike Abacha who was a military despot and had General Muhammadu Buhari as his bursar, the case of Diezani is wound around the intricacies of political vendetta in which she appears to have been singled out from a team of ministers that served under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The pile of assets listed by the EFCC and their values are huge and would continue to pull the attention of cash explorers until the case is resolved: so also are the list of people involved in numerous transactions that are under investigation. While Diezani is the only woman and central figure in all the mess, it is striking that she remains the only name still ringing loud after years of sustained traducement.

Many analysts had interrogated the sudden loss of momentum in the initial hot chase for the minister at the end of the Jonathan administration of the government. There are also questions on why it took so long for the British NCA to press charges against a suspect arrested in 2015. Was there no material evidence or indictment supporting the arrest in the first instance?

Again, The Oracle Today reports that the prosecution of Diezani will provide inroad into the intricate stories that have for the past eight years portrayed her as hungry petty thief who suddenly happened on a huge pile of cash.

Whereas this piece has no intention of holding brief for anyone; it is important to reason that Diezani, a beneficiary of the exclusive Chevening scholarship, an alumnus of Howard University and Cambridge University respectively, is a professional architect and accomplished career woman.

Born into a rich family, Diezani married into another rich family. She is also a rich lady in her own right. And she could honestly afford some of the items seized by the EFCC; including her panties, brassiers and jewelry. Diezani is an outstanding female superstar whose acclaims are now regrettably diminished and tainted by a complex mix of politics, corruption and vendetta which are linked to her roles as three time minister of three separate ministries of Transportation, Solid Minerals and Petroleum.

Before venturing into the muddy waters of Nigerian politics, and getting entrapped into the lucre and lures of power, Diezani had a smooth running career as an executive in the oil industry where she also stood out as ceiling breaker for Nigerian women after becoming the first indigenous female Director in Shell. She was the first female country delegate to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the only female President in the history of the multilateral oil producers group.  

Unfortunately, the petroleum industry is not a softy terrain for women unless they are very spirited! Worse terrain for Nigerian women is politics. And a combination of both terrains creates a jagged ground for the soft soles of a woman.

Thus, it would appear that the fierceness of strong-willed woman in a male dominated turf bruised a lot of egos and challenged the cultural superiority of many people. The situation, for careful observers, amplified every of her missteps; elevating every unclear action to an amplified sacrilege.

Again, it is said that the loyalty of a committed woman is as solid as rock. Diezani was one of the strongest political pillars that supported former President Goodluck Jonathan during the campaigns for the 2015 elections. Dismantling her was a critical success factor for the desperate opposition party. Vilifying her and amplifying her misdeeds were meant to break and weaken her. And that was robustly achieved.

From gas deals with Process & Industrial Developments Ltd (P&ID) through mediation into OPL 245 ownership dispute, service contracts with some indigenous companies and crude lifting pecks for indigenous upstarts, corruption investigations were instigated against Diezani. Some of the investigations also triggered false alarms and related offshore court actions that led to vindication of Shell and Eni in Europe over accusations of bribery in the Nigerian OPL 245 scandal.

A supporting suit against the companies by former Petroleum Minister, Ibe Kachikwu, turned out to be a hushed blunder that still leaves embarrassing impression on Nigeria.

In the P&ID scandal which targeted Diezani, Nigeria is currently struggling with significant $10 billion in damages awarded by court after the Buhari administration breached the terms of the deal.  Warnings about the implication of the action were easily dismissed on the claims that the preceding government was corrupt.

Corruption is sin and crime in all its forms. And discriminatory justice is also corruption. Therefore, the face of the law must be fearless. The agents of the law must also come with clean pairs of hands. So, it becomes disturbing when systems and agencies that fight corruption appear grossly biased, incompetent, inefficient or weak.

Bribery and corruption take counterparties to accomplish; and when the allegations are complex, the number of culprits is expected to grow. Instead, the initial crowd associated with the Diezani case has thinned down.

Some of the key political leaders in the present government were regular visitors to EFCC in the past. Nearly every career politician in government today had visited or hosted operators of the EFCC. And more stealing has happened in the country since 2015.

Eminent names in the crude oil stealing and illegal export are now received in Aso Rock with diplomatic cordiality. Even those closely related to occupants of Aso Rock have been mentioned in the list of those benefiting from transactions on the properties allegedly owned by Diezani and investigated by the police in London!

There are hundreds of online reports detailing that President Tinubu’s 36 year old son, Oluwaseyi Tinubu, is a major stakeholder in a company that bought one of the London properties linked to Diezani for princely £9.0 million.

Bloomberg reported in May that Seyi’s Aranda bought the controversial property in 2017 even when it was known that the former owner of the property, Kolawole Aluko, is also under the radar of investigators over oil deals linked to Diezani.

Even in the EFCC, allegations and indictments of top officials are regular and rampant. Erstwhile Chairman of the commission,  Abdulrasheed Bawa, had been enmeshed in allegations of corruption before he was fired and subsequently arrested on the orders of the new president. Bawa headed the investigations of Diezani from 2015 to 2019. His roles reportedly led to the recovery of millions of dollars and properties from the former minister.

Bawa was busted in a media report which detailed allegations of how he was regularly detained and subsequently relocated from Port Harcourt for allegedly stealing and selling dozens of confiscated petrol-bearing trucks to his proxies at ridiculous prices. Civil society groups had protested in vain against his nomination by former President Buhari as EFCC Chairman.

Bawa’s predecessor, Magu, faced similar allegations and detention on his way out of office.

A lot has happened to Nigeria: and worse things have happened to her citizens since 2015. The economic fortunes of the country have been drained in the past eight years. Poverty has taken a raid on the people. Business environment forces high attrition rate on startups. Worsening unemployment among youths stokes restiveness and crime. High cost of fuel and foreign exchange keeps inflation soaring. And the available cash savings lose value and worsen poverty as prices of goods and services jump.

Thus, the prevailing spate of public outcry against harsh policies is real and calls for sustainable resolution. Reactivating the Diezani drama might divert attention and allow President Tinubu and his crowd of nearly 60 ministers and aides to temporarily catch their breath. But the real problem, economic hardship, can only be solved by cutting the cost of governance and applying available funds to create congenial business climate, create jobs and accelerate development.

If we must fish out all corrupt people in government for trial, then we must approach the task with clean hands and boldly facilitate migration of nearly all the political leaders and key officials in ministries, departments and agencies into EFCC cells.

• The contents of this article strictly belong to the writer and don not represent the position of Oracle Newspapers Limited.