EFCC says Adoke, Etete ‘in hiding’ as OPL 245 trial is stalled

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says key persons to be tried in the OPL 245 affair are in hiding, making it impossible for the trial to start.

Mohammed Adoke, former attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice, and Dan Etete, former minister of petroleum, are among to be arraigned by EFCC over the $1.3 billion deal involving Shell, ENI and Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd.

Others are Aliyu Abubakar, an oil mogul, and six firms: Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd, Rocky Top Resource Ltd, Imperial Union Ltd, Novel Properties and Development Company Ltd, Group Construction Ltd and MegaTech Engineering Ltd.

Johnson Ojogbane, the EFCC lawyer, on Thursday requested John Tsoho, a judge of the federal high court, Abuja, to adjourn their arraignment. Tsoho thereafter adjourned till February 15, 2018.

Ojogbane told the court: “My lord, my situation has not improved since the last time. The process of securing the defendants to appear before this court has been very cumbersome but it is ongoing. We are hoping that very soon the process will be completed.

“In the circumstance, I am asking for further date to enable us complete the process so that we can have the defendants in court for arraignment.”

The federal government had previously told the court that it was working on the extradition of Adoke and Etete to face trial.

Adoke left the country in 2015 and has refused to return, alleging that there was a plot to humiliate and assassinate him because of the big toes he had stepped on when he was attorney-general from 2010 to 2015.

The controversial oil licence was awarded to Malabu in 1998 at a time the beneficial owners were Dan Etete, then minister of petroleum resources who approved the licence, and Mohammed Abacha, son of the head of state at the time.

It was revoked in 2001 by President Olusegun Obasanjo and awarded to Shell same year, but was revoked again in 2006 and returned to Malabu following an out-of-court settlement.

President Goodluck Jonathan finally restored the block to Malabu in 2010 in a $1.3 billion deal.

An estimate says OPL 245 holds reserves of 9.3bn barrels of crude oil and gas reserves.

But the deal has become a subject of litigation as Shell and ENI paid $1.1 billion to acquire the field from Malabu and $210 million to the federal government as signature bonus.

Both payments were made to a federal government account, leading to suspicion that Shell and ENI did not want to be directly involved with Malabu because of corporate governance issues.

Italian prosecutors believe Shell and ENI executives knew government officials were going to be bribed from the payments for their roles in getting the deal approved.

Adoke has denied any wrong doing, maintaining that he did not have powers to give any approval for payment to government account.

He also said his legal opinion saved the federation from paying a fine of $2 billion to Shell following the oil company’s resort to arbitration.