The Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre) has accused a former Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, of publishing falsehoods in his recent book about the controversial Malabu OPL 245 oil deal.
In a statement signed by HEDA’s chairperson, Olanrewaju Suraju, the civil society organisation described Mr Adoke’s memoir as an attempt to distort facts and mislead the public.
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The group said Mr Adoke’s claims in his latest book contradict what he earlier wrote in his previous book, “The burden of (did) service,” and absolve him of responsibility and culpability in the $1.1 billion oil block scandal.
Mr Adoke, who was accused of corruption by local and foreign anti-corruption investigators and advocates during the scandal but was later cleared by the court, presented his new book to the public on Thursday.
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The memoir is titled ‘OPL 245: Inside Story of the $1.3 billion Nigerian Oil Block’.
In the book, he accused HEDA and other organisations as entities who sought his downfall.
The former AGF added that he suffered reputational damage over the role he played in the implementation of the agreement on the OPL 245 case.
He accused investigators and prosecutors of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) of suppressing evidence and intimidating witnesses to secure a conviction in the OPL 245 case.
He said the motivation behind writing the book was not to denigrate any individual or group, but to set the records straight and provide insights into the issues surrounding the $1.3 billion Nigerian oil block transaction.
However, in response to claims written in the book, HEDA’s Mr Suraju also accused Mr Adoke of being a “remorseless liar who has concocted stories and fabricated evidence to rewrite his ignoble role in the case.”
Mr Suraju alleged that the former AGF’s actions undermined Nigeria’s national interest and facilitated the unlawful transfer of public funds to private entities under the guise of resolving ownership disputes over OPL 245.
“HEDA, a long-standing petitioner in both Nigerian and international investigations into the Malabu deal, reaffirmed its position that Mr Adoke played a central role in approving the controversial settlement between Shell, Eni, and Malabu Oil & Gas Limited, despite numerous red flags. Suraju noted that email correspondences and documents presented by the organisation and its partners as evidence had been officially tendered in courts in Milan, Switzerland, and London formed part of the evidence used by prosecutors in foreign jurisdictions,” the group said.
“In 2021, Adoke filed petitions against some persons to the inspector general alleging forgery of an email correspondence from the private email account of a friend of Adoke and beneficiary of the Malabu deal to JP Morgan Chase Bank, accusing the persons of forgery. He surreptitiously went and mentioned the names of Suraju and HEDA as the persons of interest. Mr Suraju appeared before the Police with overwhelming evidence proving not only that the email was a genuine document of the court, but also defended the integrity of the organisation and its partners against the allegation of Adoke, who attempted to hide behind a finger.”
HEDA accused Mr Adoke of working with former AGF Abubakar Malami to abandon the forgery allegations. The group said Mr Adoke and Mr Malami worked together to invoke the Cybercrimes Act against Mr Suraju for sharing the court document via the Twitter and Facebook platforms of HEDA.
“Mr. Suraju rose gallantly to robustly defend the fictitious and concocted allegations, leading to the withdrawal of those charges even before the commencement of full trial, with Malami and Adoke realising the readiness of Suraju to put them both directly under trial. However, a Federal High Court in Abuja struck out all charges in May 2022 after the Nigerian government withdrew the case due to a lack of evidence. Suraju has maintained that all materials published by HEDA were already in the public domain or submitted in international legal proceedings,” the group said.
“Mr Suraju had since filed a defamation case against Adoke for his defamatory statement in the fabricated petition to the Police, to which he had denied all the claims in that petition in court documents and recounted ever accusing HEDA or Suraju of forging the email, an evidence submitted in London court by JP MORGAN Chase bank.”
In light of what it describes as “libelous and defamatory” content in Mr Adoke’s book, HEDA said it is committed to and prepared to publish the true story behind OPL245 and the ignoble role of Mr Adoke in depriving Nigeria of $1.1 billion in payment and $5.7 billion in royalties and others, even overriding the advice of a bureaucrat who warned against his signing of the deal.
“We will not allow falsehoods to stand unchallenged, especially when they seek to discredit the work of patriotic Nigerians and mislead the public about a case of such national importance, using the proceeds of criminal activities for image laundering,” the organisation said.
Background story of OPL 245
OPL 245 was awarded to Malabu Oil and Gas in 1998 by the Sani Abacha administration.
However, the block later became the focus of global corruption investigations, criminal prosecutions, and civil lawsuits after Malabu sold its entire stake to Shell and Eni for $1.1 billion in 2011.
Mr Adoke was named in the $1.1 billion Malabu Oil scandal involving a settlement agreement that he oversaw as Nigeria’s attorney-general in 2011.
Nigeria, the original owner of the OPL 245, was shortchanged in the complex web of transactions and ownership disputes that have dogged the oil asset since 1998, when it was first controversially awarded to Malabu Oil and Gas Limited, according to prosecutors and activists.
The funds that were allegedly meant for Nigeria were used to bribe officials, prosecutors said. The EFCC accused Mr Adoke of benefiting fraudulently from the Malabu deal he helped to broker as the then AGF in 2011. The settlement agreement was meant to cede ownership of the OPL 245 to oil giants Shell and Eni after a decades-long battle over it.
Mr Adoke, who was justice minister under former President Jonathan’s administration, was charged with bribery, among other sundry offences alongside a businessman, Aliyu Abubakar; Rasky Gbinigie; Malabu Oil and Gas Limited; Nigeria Agip Exploration Limited; Shell Nigeria Extra Deep Limited and Shell Nigeria Exploration Production Company Limited over the Malabu oil scam. They were arraigned before the FCT High Court in Abuja in February 2020 on a 40-count amended charge.
The EFCC would later admit that it lacked evidence against Mr Adoke in the case, leading to the court’s decision to dismiss the charges last year. In the other case filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja, EFCC accused him and Mr Abubakar of money laundering involving N300 million that was mentioned as proceeds of bribery in the FCT High Court case.
The court similarly discharged and acquitted Mr Adoke in the money laundering case.
Although he was discharged and acquitted in the case, Mr Adoke said, “the scars remain.”
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