38 BUSINESS DAY NEWS
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Thursday 04 October 2018
Inside details of $1.3bn Malabu scandal exposed... Continued from page 1
erlands based Shell and Italian based Eni for US$1.3 billion, but only US$200 million of the money was transferred to federation accounts while balance of US$1.1 billion went to Malabu’s oil’s owner Dan Etete. The allegation is that most of the money that went to Etete was eventually passed on as bribes to top Nigerian government officials, most of whom, including Jonathan have insisted they did no wrong. But Italian authorities disagree and have filed a case in Italy against Shell and Eni for facilitating bribe to Nigerian officials. At the Milan Palace of Justice in Italy, three senior Judges on Wednesday listened to testimony from Jonathan Benton, former joint-head of the UK’s International Corruption Unit who gave detailed account of how former president Jonathan, former head of Economic and Financial crimes commission Ibrahim Lamorde, Former Attorney General Mohammed Adoke and Umar Bature a former House of representative member acted as lead actors in various stages of the much controversial OPL 245. Jonathan Benton recounted to the court how an incident occurred in 2012 when Jeffrey Tesler, a Briton Who had previously been successfully prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice in 2011, walked into a north London police station with a suitcase containing £378,000 wrapped in bundles which prompted an undercover operation. Jonathan Benton told the court how a covert operation at the Cavendish Hotel in London where a man who acted as a courier was arrested handing over a bag with £70,000 in cash to another man. Benton describes how the courier had collected cash from two western union money changers
in London, when the police later served orders requiring western union to show details of the transaction, there was no trace of where this money had come from, which was very unusual. According to Barnaby Pace, anti-corruption campaigner at Global Witness, Benton described the recipient of the bag of cash as Umar Bature, a former House of representative member representing Sokoto state. He tried to use diplomatic protection when he was arrested, and had $50,000 cash in his room. The police eventually pursued civil forfeiture of the money. Jonathan Benton further explained how then head of the EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde told him that the investigation into OPL 245 would not be sanctioned from above, implying that his boss, the then Attorney General Mohammed Adoke under Jonathan Administration, would not allow the case to proceed. Benton said he turned down a meeting in London with Adoke when Lamorde informed him that Adoke will like to meet him. It was a very strange request as the Attorney General meets ministers or senior law officers, not ordinary police officers looking at corruption. He declined to meet Adoke in London. But Benton said months later, he was forced to see Adoke in Nigeria without first being told he was coming to see him. Benton said Adoke told him the OPL 245 deal was settled and Nigeria was not going to open an investigation into the case as the decision was above him, implying that he did not have the authorisation of former President Jonathan to order an investigation into the matter. Benton was asked about the investigation into former Nigerian oil minister Diezani Alison Madueke. He said that the investigation which began secretly at Scotland
Nigeria could earn $7.5bn from October oil... Continued from page 1
currency last month compare to $1.5bn in August. Nigeria’s daily oil production is at 1.73m barrels a day and there is a good chance this could go higher to around 1.88mbd before the end of this month. Rewane spoke Wednesday at the monthly CEO breakfast meeting of the Lagos Business School. Oil prices have climbed above $85 a barrel for the first time in nearly four years as renewed worries about US sanctions on Iran and optimism over global economic growth propelled the market higher. Hedge funds and other money managers have flocked to the benchmark Brent crude oil futures market in recent weeks on concern that Iran’s looming supply curtailment, along with production shortfalls in Venezuela, could rapidly deplete stockpiles just as global demand hurtles towards 100m barrels per day. Sentiment received a further lift on Monday after Canada
reached a deal with the US to replace the longstanding North American Free Trade Agreement with a new accord, averting a full-blown trade war and raising expectations for oil demand across the continent. Brent crude, the international marker, jumped as much as 3.3 per cent to $85.45 a barrel late Monday, the highest level since early November 2014. West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, advanced 3.4 per cent to as high as $75.77 a barrel, also the strongest level in almost four years. Underlining the mood, funds have added more than 100m barrels equivalent over the past month to their net bullish position in London’s Brent futures market. US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports are set to take effect on November 4, following US president Donald Trump’s withdrawal from an international deal over its nuclear programme. The renewed sanctions raise the likelihood of less supply. Frantic deal making by Asian buyers at an annual oil conference in Singapore last week was
L-R: Amme Saad, GM, Hawthorn Suites By Wyndham; Farouk Aliyu, MD, Shelter Suites and Hotels, and Udedeh Olakpe, project director, Shelter Suites, during a world press briefing ahead of the grand opening of Hawthorn Suites By Wyndham in Abuja, yesterday. Pic by Tunde Adeniyi
Yard and has since expanded “it is a huge investigation” he said without explaining further. Last month a court in Italy sentenced two middle aged men Nigeria’s Emeka Obi and Italian’s Gianluca Di Nardowere to four years in imprisonment for helping to arrange a payment between the multinational oil companies Shell, ENI and the Nigerian government. The raging scandal over the OPL 245 oil block began in 2011 when Jonathan administration approved the purchase by Shell and Agip-Eni from Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd., a suspected briefcase firm with ties to Dan Etete, a convicted criminal who was Nigeria’s petroleum minister from 1995 to 1998. The Jonathan administration officials who participated in the negotiation preceding the controan indication of concerns of scarcity among physical crude traders, analysts said. “The market is incredibly tight,” said Amrita Sen, founder of consultancy Energy Aspects, who noted that financial players were just realising the severity of the impact of Washington’s sanctions. “People are distracted by various comments from [European] governments trying to set up alternative payment mechanisms, but the refiners and other companies dealing directly on the oil markets are saying it’s not worth the risk,” she added. Higher crude oil prices are lifting petrol prices. In the US, the world’s biggest petrol consumer, prices at the pump were above $3 per gallon in parts of the country, up 12 per cent from a year before, the Energy Information Administration said on Monday. “Investors and market participants are struggling to understand how sustainable the current sanctions policy will be in the face of a $90 price range,” said Michael Cohen, oil analyst at Barclays.
versial sale of the massive oil block included Adoke, Attorney-General at the time; and Alison-Madueke, who was petroleum minister. Jonathan himself was named by investigators as being involved in the alleged fraud, but the former president strongly denies the charges. In the first hearing of the case on September 26, the court heard about how the $1.1bn paid for OPL 245 went through London, failed an attempted transfer to a Swiss Bank, before it was filtered through Nigerian banks and companies
back into and out of Europe. The next hearing of the case has been fixed for October 10, during which the FBI is expected to present its own evidence into the scandal which is now being investigated globally. Investigations are currently going on in the case in the US, UK, Switzerland, Nigeria and Italy with detectives carrying out surprise raids, wiretaps and money tracing. The outcome of the case is expected to have a significant impact on how oil companies interact with the Nigerian government going forward.
Confusion over Lagos PDP primaries … as Agbaje, Dorherty in supremacy battle for guber ticket Iniobong Iwok
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here seems to be confusion over the date for the gubernatorial primaries of the Lagos chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The gubernatorial primaries was initially slated to hold last week Saturday, but was shifted to the next day Sunday, the party cited lack of logistic as reason for a change of date. But a source in the party who spoke with BusinessDay last night said the date for the gubernatorial primaries had not been decided, adding that it might however hold later in the week. A chieftain of the party in the state told BusinessDay that the House of Representative and House of Assembly primaries would be conducted on Wednesday, while the gubernatorial primaries would be held before weekend. However, two top politicians, business mogul, Deji Dorherty and Jimi Agbaje, are expected to slug it out for the gubernatorial ticket of the party. The two notable politicians have long been political rivalries in the PDP in the state, and had previously contested for the party’s governorship ticket in 2011 and 2015.
Though, in 2014, Agbaje had against all odds defeated Dorherty and former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, at the party’s primaries to emerged the PDP candidate, but subsequently narrowly losing the governorship election to incumbent, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of the APC. Agbaje had polled 659,738 votes to Ambode’s 812, 390 votes. Speaking recently on his ambition and reasons for picking the party’s nomination form, Agbaje said he decided to contest due to pressure from his teeming supports across the state, stressing that he was confident that the party’s leadership would create a level playing ground for all the aspirants. “It is true that initially I did not want to re-contest, but I had so many people urging me to run. I bought and submitted my nomination form shortly before it closed. I will be part of the PDP Lagos governorship primaries”. “Our primaries have always been open, fair and free for all. This is what we are known for, and that is the way I expect it to be,”. “It is the people of Lagos State that will decide. The issues in the party will not impart negatively on votes. Most Nigerians now vote for individuals rather than party.”