The United Kingdom Prosecution Service has agreed to help Nigeria recover $1.1 billion diverted oil bloc money, the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating alleged corruption, malpractices and breach of due process in the award of Oil Prospecting Licence, OPL, 245, revealed on Wednesday, October 5.
Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Razak Atunwa, who disclosed this when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and representatives of Shell and Nigeria Agip appeared before the committee, vowed that all the funds meant for the federation account, would be recovered
The Ad-hoc Committee Chairman at the sitting said: “Nigerian people deserve to know what happened to their $1.1 billion. At today’s exchange rate, that is over N500 billion. That amount can fund the entire budget of the Ministry of Education. It is double the entire budget of the Ministry of Health. It is more than the Capital expenditure of Works, Power and Housing.”
Explaining the reason for the investigation, Atunwa said: “Government ministers, chiefly the then Attorney-General, Mohammed Bello Adoke, and the then Minister for Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke are alleged to have contrived a series of complex agreements of questionable nature.
“The summary of the agreement was that Shell and Nigeria Agip Exploration (NAE) paid $1.1bn to the Federal Government for the oil bloc. Rather than putting the money into the Federation Account as required by the constitution, Mr. Adoke SAN and Mrs. Allison- Madueke then caused the money to be transferred to Malabu which then spirited the money to various foreign bank accounts.
“In this regard, it is alleged that companies, such as AA Oil Ltd were engaged to launder the funds. OPL 245 is a potentially highly lucrative oil bloc encompassing a massive area of about 1,958 square kilometres and estimated to hold up to 9.2 billion barrels of crude oil.
“OPL 245 has a long and chequered history. It has been mired in controversy and steeped in allegations of corruption from the onset. The complex history may be broadly summarised as follows: In April 1998, under late General Sani Abacha, the former Minister for Petroleum Resources, Dan Etete awarded the licence of the bloc to himself using his company Malabu Oil and Gas. He awarded it to himself at just $20m, out of which he only paid $2m.
From the beginning of the investigative session the committee was at variance with the position of Shell, particularly the letter written by its lawyer, Chief Richard Akinjide (SAN) to the committee on behalf of Shell that the House had no power to investigate the matter.
However, representative of the Acting Chairman of EFCC, Mr. Aliyu Yusuf told the committee that there was no information to him on the required documents to be presented and pleaded that two weeks be given to the commission for it to provide all the demanded documents.
Although a committee member, Rep Kehinde Odeneye had expressed dismay over the commission’s inability to provide the necessary documents demanded by the committee, the Chairman,Atunwa accepted the plea.
