Ex-petroleum minister Diezani files N100 billion libel suit against EFCC, AGF

A former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has sued the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) for their alleged libelous publications accusing her of corruption.

Mrs Alison-Madueke is suing for N100 billion as compensation for the publications which, she said, falsely portrayed her “as a common looter of the national wealth and a debased and corrupt public officer.”

The suit which she filed at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, on 26 May, challenges publications that date back to 2016.

The suit came days before the end of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration which levelled the weighty corruption allegations against her.

Ms Alison-Madueke, 62, who has left Nigeria and been living in the United Kingdom since 2015, filed the suit through her lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, urged the court to declare some specific corruption allegations, which appeared on various news platforms and EFCC websites between 2016 and 2022 as false.

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Apart from asking for N100 billion compensation, the former minister also urged the court to order the EFCC and the AGF to retract the alleged libelous publications.

She also urged the court to order the EFCC and the AGF to “publish an unreserved apology in at least three (3) national newspapers, including Thisday, The Punch and The Sun Newspapers within seven (7) days from the date of judgement”.

Allegations

The Buhari administration came to power in 2015 accusing the past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan government, in which Ms Alison-Madueke served, of monumental corruption.

Activities of Ms Alison-Madueke’s Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which she served as its chair, were often cited by the Buhari government as part of the worst forms of corruption that took place during the Jonathan administration.

The former minister quickly became a subject of intense investigations and legal proceedings in Nigeria as soon as the new government settled down.

A court document revealed that the current chair of EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, who was appointed to head the team investigating Ms Alison-Madueke and her allies, once travelled to the United Kingdom to interrogate the former minister but could not gain access to her.

EFCC’s investigations culminated in the money laundering charges filed against her in 2018. The commission also targeted high-worth assets it believed she acquired with proceeds of crimes for forfeiture.

Activities of some officials of the agencies linked to her ministry were also subject of corruption charges.

Some electoral officers have also been jailed for funds they allegedly received from NNPC on her watch to manipulate the results of the 2015 elections.

On different occasions, the Federal High Court in Abuja has issued a warrant of arrest against her as part of the process of bringing her to Nigeria to face charges.

The EFCC blamed the United Kingdom government for shielding her from trial.

Denials

But Ms Alison-Madueke has insisted in her fresh suit that she had been wrongly associated “with money laundering, public funds from the Federal Republic of Nigeria and of being a corrupt, dishonest, dishonourable, unscrupulous, unprincipled, debased, degenerate and decadent public officer”.

Specifically, she denied a corruption allegation contained in a publication titled, ‘Diezani: EFCC uncovers additional $72.8 million in Fidelity Bank’ I 16 December 2021,

She similarly denied a report titled, ‘Unbelievable!!! EFCC traces N47.2 Billion, $487.5 Million to ex-Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke’.

She also denied another report accusing her of stealing $2.5 billion, and another alleging that embezzled N47.2 billion.

She said both the EFCC and the AGF “had the means and opportunities of verifying the truth or otherwise of the offensive publications, but failed to do so and were motivated in making the offensive publications by the desire to increase their public profile and perception”.

She said the respondents by the publications brought her reputation “into contempt, odium and ridicule in the eyes of an average Nigerian.”

Since the publications, the claimant said, her residence abroad “has also been inundated with visits by relatives and friends both home and abroad, who have expressed their shock and disappointment in her over these false publications”.

‘Why I left Nigeria one week to end of Jonathan tenure’

Popular belief has had it that Ms Alison Madueke fled the country shortly after the Jonathan administration ended in May 2015 in fear of being caught and prosecuted by then-new administration of Mr Buhari.

But Ms Alison-Madueke said she was hurriedly flown to the United Kingdom on 22 May 2015, about a week before the new government came to power, to attend to her failing health.

She said towards the end of the Jonathan administration, she was diagnosed with “the most aggressive form of breast cancer –Triple Negative Cancer and was hurriedly flown to England on 22 May, 2015, in order to undertake a critical course of treatment.”

The treatment she took, according to the former minister, “consisted of two operations, eight months of intensive chemotherapy and five weeks of radiotherapy and have remained in England ever since then, undergoing medical care and treatment.”

In November 2015, a photo showing an emaciated Ms Alison-Madueke was released on social media platforms by a media personality, Dele Momodu.

READ ALSO: Diezani sues EFCC over forfeited assets

Ms Alison-Madueke, who described herself as an architect, served at various times as Minister of Transportation and Minister of Mines and Steel Development under the President Umaru Yar’Adua administration between 2007 and 2009.

She later served as the Minister for Petroleum Resources of the between 2010 and 2015 in the government of former President Jonathan.