Mohammed Bello Adoke, former
attorney-general of the federation (AGF), has for the umpteenth time denied
collecting a bribe from the OPL 245/Malabu deal.
In an interview with Premium
Times, Adoke said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) would
have seized the property he was alleged to have bought with the bribe if there
was any truth to it.
The former minister of justice,
who has been on self-exile since 2015, has been speaking on his time in
government in a series of interviews published by the Abuja-based newspaper.
In 2011, the federal government
brokered a deal between Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd, the original allotees of the
enormously endowed but controversial OPL 245, and Shell/ENI who wanted to buy
the oil block from the Nigerian company.
While Shell and ENI paid a
signature bonus of $210 million to the federal government, they paid $1.1
billion to buy 100 percent interest in the oil block from Malabu.
However, the entire $1.3 billion
was transferred to the account of the federal government in London, UK, from
where Malabu was paid its $1.1 billion.
Subsequently, it was alleged that
bribes were paid to government to facilitate the deal, considered by activists
as unfavourable to Nigeria.
The EFCC charged Adoke to court
in absentia, accusing him of collecting $2 million as bribe from the deal.
FAILED MORTGAGE
Asked pointedly if he did not
benefit from the money allegedly shared after the deal went through, Adoke
replied: “I did not. And by the special grace of God I have not done anything
wrong, and time and events will prove this.”
He said the transaction that was
being used by the EFCC against him was a failed mortgage deal between him,
Unity Bank and Aliyu Abubakar, the alleged distributor of the bribe.
“When I became a minister, my SSS
people said my house is not safe… If I wanted to build a house, how long would
it take me to build a house? So I needed to buy. I started looking for a house
to buy and I saw a house and they said it belonged to a man I know. I called
him and he said he was going to sell it to me at N500million and I agreed
because of the location,” Adoke, who was AGF from 2010 to 2015, said.
“I didn’t have that amount of
money then. I approached my bankers, Unity Bank. I told them this is the
transaction I have and this is what I wanted. They agreed to fund the
transaction. I was to pay an equity contribution of N200million. I had a plot
of land that was given to me by Bala Mohammed (then FCT minister) in my name.
The bank paid directly to Alhaji Aliyu Abubakar. They paid it directly to his
company, not that the money came to me.
“Somewhere along the line,
timelines were not being met to pay back the loan and I couldn’t even sell the
land to pay the N200million equity participation and at the same time the loan
was going bad and I have to be paying interest. It was a five-year term loan.
So, the owner of the property came to me, which was still under construction and
said since I cannot pay him the N200 million, CBN wants to buy the house and
said he should sell it to them since I don’t have proprietary on the property
yet. He asked for the certificate but I said I don’t have the certificate. I
directed him to the bank, Unity Bank, who paid him the money and took the
certificate.
“I called the MD of the bank and
thanked him for the loan offer while asking him to take the cash from Alhaji
Aliyu and release the property’s certificates in the custody of the bank. The
man paid the bank directly. Whether he paid them in dollars I don’t know… They
collected the money and the bank released the certificate to Alhaji Aliyu
Abubakar. Aliyu Abubakar sold the house to CBN. He had already sold the house.
“The question you should be
asking yourself is: They said he laundered money for me, he paid for my
mortgage, then where is the proceed of the [crime]? Where is the house? Why is
it that the EFCC did not attach the mortgage or go for forfeiture of the house?
That is the question you should have asked. That is what we call investigative
journalism. That is the money laundering they said I committed.”
He promised to return to Nigeria
between July and September 2019 after undergoing a surgery for an undisclosed
ailment, denying allegations that he was running away from justice.
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com