Adoke, who
spoke in an interview with online portal, TheCable, said: ‘’No, I did not authorise the transaction, I
only conveyed the approval of the President to all the parties. Those are two
different things. I did not authorise the transaction as I was not a signatory
but only conveyed the president’s approval.’’
The former
Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello
Adoke, has said he did not authorise the Malabu Oil deal, otherwise known OPL
245, but only conveyed the approval of President Goodluck Jonathan to all the
parties involved in the transaction.
Explaining
the genesis of the transaction, Adoke said: ‘’The Malabu issue has been in
existence since 1998. I want to take it from 1998 because I have seen that in
recent times, the EFCC has taken up interest in the matter with a view to
persecuting me. ‘’
In order to
make me look bad they have deliberately bifurcated the transaction and have
chosen to present the issues from 2010 when I became involved in the
settlement. However,the transaction
started in 1998, when the military administration of General Sani Abacha came
up with the policy of encouraging indigenous participation in the upstream
sector of the oil and gas industry.
‘’They
allocated oil blocks to indigenous companies on discretionary basis at a
reduced signature bonus of $20 million. The beneficiaries include Malabu Oil
and Gas Ltd, South Atlantic Petroleum Ltd (owned by Theophilus Danjuma) and
Famfa Oil Ltd (Folorunsho Alakija). Malabu was allocated OPL 245 and they made
a part-payment of $2 million for the signature bonus and brought in Shell as
technical partners.
‘’Things
seemed to be going on smoothly. Gen. Abacha died and Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar
came in, and things continued. And then he handed over power to Gen. Olusegun
Obasanjo in 1999. ‘’Sometime in 2001, due to circumstances not very clear but
which the principal actors in government at the time can best explain, the
federal government revoked OPL 245 from Malabu, whose beneficial owner was
Chief Dan Etete, among others. It will be recalled that Etete was minister of
petroleum when the oil block was awarded to Malabu in 1998.
‘’The
administration of President Obasanjo then invited some international oil companies (IOCs) to bid for
the Block 245. Shell participated and won the bid. The signature bonus was now
$210 million. Malabu felt short-changed that Shell, its technical partner, had
acted irresponsibly.”
‘’Shell as
technical partner to Malabu already had insider knowledge of the block. Malabu
petitioned the house of representatives who then conducted a public hearing
into the transaction and concluded that the revocation of the block from Malabu
and reallocation to Shell was done mala fide (in bad faith) and declared it
null and void. It therefore passed a resolution that the block should be returned
to Malabu.
‘’Government
did not comply with the resolution, so Malabu went to court and there was a
series of litigation between Malabu and the FGN until sometime in 2006 when
they entered into an out-of-court settlement which was subsequently reduced to
a consent judgment of the federal high court, Abuja under the tenure of the
then attorney-general of the federation, Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN. ‘’
As a result
of the agreement and all the conditions set out to be met by all parties, Chief
Edmund Daukoru, who was then the minister of state for petroleum resources,
wrote on behalf of the FGN, and on behalf of the president and
commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and who incidentally was the minister
of petroleum, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR, to convey the decision to return
the block 100% to Malabu in accordance
with the terms of settlement.
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