Bid to seize Diezani’s assets ‘may be the beginning of her legal troubles’

Mathew Page, a former US state department specialist, says a civil forfeiture case to seize assets worth $144 million from two cronies of Diezani Alison-Madueke, former minister of petroleum, may just be the beginning of her legal troubles with the US.

The US justice department last week filed an asset recovery suit in Houston against Jide Omokore and Kola Aluko, seeking the seizure of luxury property, including a New York apartment and super-yacht, owned by one of the businessmen.

Omokore and Aluko allegedly bribed Alison-Madueke in return for oil contracts.

“Although this is the first attempt by US law enforcement to go after assets allegedly stolen by Diezani and her henchmen, it almost certainly will not be the last,” NAN quoted Page as saying.

At present, Diezani faces charges only at home, but her name has appeared in a growing number of international cases that lift the lid on the scale of corruption in Nigeria’s oil sector.

Since leaving office in 2015, she has been implicated in bribery, fraud, misuse of public funds, and money laundering cases in Nigeria, Britain, Italy and the United States.

The first female president of the global oil cartel OPEC — who was one of Africa’s most prominent politicians — denied the allegations, which involved billions of dollars siphoned from oil deals and state coffers.

In one case heard in February, Alison-Madueke was accused of diverting some $153 million from the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation coffers.

In another ongoing trial, some N23 billion of NNPC money is alleged to have been used to influence the 2015 presidential election to keep Goodluck Jonathan in power.

Last week, prosecutors in Lagos began proceedings to recover $1.76 billion of assets owned by Kola Aluko and Jide Omokore, whose companies were awarded oil contracts by Alison-Madueke.

Last Wednesday, another judge ordered the forfeiture of the former minister’s $37.5 million luxury Lagos property, saying it was purchased with ill-gotten funds.

Meanwhile, Italian prosecutors allege that she and Jonathan received kickbacks from oil majors ENI and Shell as part of a $1.3-billion deal for an offshore oil block – OPL 245.

Charges relating to the same oil block deal have also been filed against the oil majors and some senior politicians.

Jonathan and Alison-Madueke are not named in the suit but the former president is under pressure from the national assembly to answer questions about the “Malabu deal”.