Abacha, Atiku and Adoke in a brawl over Malabu Oil Deal? Ha!
When 3 Greedy Nigerians Brawl, the god of mammon watches over.
Why didn’t they incorporate “Grade A-Greed un-Limited”.
The countless colleagues and their families victims of Adoke’s greed.
I received a letter addressed to the present AGF Malami, I was copied. In it one of our colleagues asked
Malami to help some pensioners from where AGF Adoke poorly stopped. Of all Adoke
had from the tiny clique he formed the inept dept of (in)justice, still didn’t cure
his mental poverty.
On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 11:00 PM, Carol Ajie
<carolajie@gmail.com> wrote:
In letter to VP Osinbajo, ex-AGF Adoke, lies, muddles up Malabu oil scam matter
Bello Adoke
The immediate past Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed
Adoke, in a frantic move to avoid accounting for his unprofessional role
in the transfer of $1.1 billion to an illegal company, Malabu Oil and
Gas Limited for the sale of oil block OPL 245, has written to Vice
President Yemi Osinbajo, deliberately muddling up details of the
transaction.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recently
re-opened investigations into the scandal and had invited Mr. Adoke for
questioning. Mr. Adoke is however yet to honour the agency’s invitation.
But in a desperate appeal for Mr. Osinbajo’s intervention in the
matter, Mr. Adoke recycled the same catalogue of lies he had repeatedly
circulated since his role in using the Federal Government as a platform
for a secret deal with oil giants, Shell and Eni, to transfer the
controversial fund to Malabu, an illegal company with fictitious
directors and addresses, floated by a former Petroleum Minister and
ex-convict, Dan Etete.
In the letter dated December 31, 2015, Mr. Adoke claimed he acted in
the best interest of the country and accused those he described as
agents of the Sani Abacha family; Lawal Abba, an associate of former
Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, and news website, specifically PREMIUM
TIMES and Sahara Reporters, of orchestrating smear campaign against him.
PREMIUM TIMES had in the past published a series of extensive
investigations revealing that Mr. Adoke acted unprofessionally and had
consistently lied to cover up his involvement in the fraudulent
transaction.
Contrary to his claim in the letter to Mr. Osinbajo that “the
transaction aforementioned was legitimate, transparent and well
documented, and above all, self-explanatory,” PREMIUM TIMES extensive
investigations into the deal had revealed that it was fraught with
corruption and monumental fraud.
While Mr. Adoke tried to deflect attention from his involvement in
the scandal by alleging that the Abacha family was sponsoring a smear
campaign against him, he deliberately avoided addressing the core issues
of the controversial transaction.
Firstly, Mr Adoke avoided addressing the question of the illegal
status of Malabu Oil and Gas, the company to which he authorized the
transfer of $1.1 billion.
While Mr Adoke continued to insist that the deal was illegal, the
Corporate Affairs Commission, an agency on whose board Mr Adoke once
sat, had placed a caveat on the company’s file after being briefed by
the EFCC that the company was under investigation and that its record
had been breached.
Also, before the payment was made, Mr Adoke was informed that he was dealing with fraudsters.
A letter titled “Unauthorised alterations of Malabu Oil and Gas
Limited Ownership Structure,” signed by Abdullahi Haruna, a principal
solicitor at a law firm, Onekutu, Haruna and Co., was handed over to Mr
Adoke in May 2011 when he assumed duties as attorney general, warning
him that people he was dealing with had manipulated and falsified
company records with the Corporate Affairs Commission.
Mr. Haruna also briefed Mr. Adoke of the history of Malabu and the alleged criminality of Mr. Etete.
“We humbly request that the Honourable Attorney General intervene in
these negotiations and prevent the conclusion of the transaction on the
basis of fraudulent misrepresentation,” Mr. Adoke was told.
Separate investigations by PREMIUM TIMES and the EFCC revealed that
the ownership structure of the company was illegally changed and a
fictitious new director, Kweku Amafegha, which was created by Mr. Etete,
introduced with six million shares.
By that act, Mr. Etete and other promoters of Malabu violated section
563 of the companies and allied matters act and are liable to at least
seven years in prison by virtue of sections 190 and 436 of the criminal
code act.
“Section 190 and Section 436 (b) of the Criminal Code Act is
applicable to the conduct of the promoter of Malabu, in that a false
representation or declaration was made to induce the Corporate Affairs
Commission to issue an incorporation certificate,” said Jiti Ogunye, a
Lagos based lawyer.
A PREMIUM TIMES investigation also revealed that all the office addresses provided to authorities by Malabu were fake.
But Mr. Adoke, in his letter to the Vice President, did not explain
why, as the most senior legal officer of the last government, he
approved the payment of such a huge sum of money to a company enmeshed
in corruption of which he received advance warnings.
Further, Mr Adoke also need to explain why he negotiated with Mr.
Etete when he (Etete) was never listed as a director of the company.
Another important fact of the transaction Mr. Adoke avoided talking
about was the haste at which the transaction was concluded with Mr
Etete.
PREMIUM TIMES investigation at the time revealed that Mr Adoke, in
cohort with a former Minister of State for Finance, Yerima Ngama, on
August 16, 2011, hurriedly and secretly authorised the transfer of the
money to Malabu from a Nigerian government account with JP Morgan
International Bank, a day before the assumption of duties of the
immediate past Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Malabu subsequently transferred the money to other phony companies
with falsified addresses in what the EFCC described at the time as a
“cloudy scene associated with fraudulent dealings”.
