Saturday, August 17, 2013

Obasanjo Demanded Share Bribe From Malabu $1.1bn Fraud

previous President Olusegun Obasanjo was involved in an below ground attempt to cut a slice of oil bloc OPL 245 in the dubious Malabu oil deal, the man at the centre of the scam, Dan Etete, told a British High Court.

According to minutia of the approved judgment by Lady Justice Gloster of the financial partition of the Royal Court of Justice, London, in a break of contract case between Malabu Oil and middleman Emeka Obi, proprietor of power projects Partners Limited (EVP), Mr. Etete, a convicted felon and sole signatory to Malabu anecdotes, said his licence to the oil impede was revoked in 2001 because confrontations erupted after Mr. Obasanjo made individual claims on the contentious oil bloc.

Mr. Etete, as Petroleum Minister in 1998, had fraudulently bestowed OPL 245 to a business he had interest in, using a untrue persona Kwekwu Amafegha. The oil bloc has since gone through distinct ownerships, lawful tussles and deals before it was controversially traded for $1.1 (over N170 billion) to case and ENi in controversial attenuating factors last year, with the Nigerian government playing a shady function in the deal.

Mr. Etete proposed that Pecos Limited, which was recorded as a previous shareholder in Malabu’s notes with the business Affairs charge, was a business attached to Mr. Obasanjo’s regime.

causes knowing about the Malabu deal told PREMIUM TIMES that Pecos, belongs to by professional Oyewole Fasawe, was utilised to secure ownership of a important percentage of the oil bloc in 2001 at a time Mr. Obasanjo and his then vice leader, Atiku Abubakar, were very close; with Mr. Fasawe doing agreements on behalf of both managers.

Pecos was contentiously removed as a shareholder in 2010 after licence to the oil impede was re-awarded to Malabu and replaced with Munamuma Seidougha and Amaran Joseph, both of who had 10 million shares each. Both men have close connections to Mr. Etete and anti-corruption investigators accept as true they were fronts utilised by Mr. Etete to outmaneuver his enterprise partners.

A career of bribery and deception

The court article furthermore displays that Mr. Etete, who was convicted for cash laundering in France, assembled bribe in surplus of N375 million ($2.5 million) between 1996 and 1998 when he was the country’s petroleum minister.

The article furthermore displays that the government was surcharged N2.7 billion ($18 million) in signature bonus accrued from the accolade of permit for OPL 245. Out of the $20 million obligatory bonus that should have been paid to the government Malabu only paid a paltry N300 million ($2.04 million) in 1999.

Flawed character

The referee while consigning refereement also expended time profiling the previous minister.

According to woman Gloster, during the course of the test, Mr. Etete came across as one with inherently flawed character. The referee described his evidence as “self-serving, self-contradictory, impractical, argumentative or, at times, almost impossible to follow.”

The judge said Mr. Etete “frequently altered his story, often inside a couple of minutes of having given a exactly opposing response. The kind in which he provided his clues was argumentative and extravagant.”

“He was prone to make wild allegations of deception and forgery, or issue the digit of accuse at others, encompassing his own trusted economic advisers and solicitors, without any appreciation of the serious significances of his accusations. His recollection was very poor and, at times, the only conclusion which I could reach was that he was being on purpose deceitful.

“My supreme deduction was that I could not rely upon him as a witness of reality. I also conclude that, in a commercial context, he would have presented an nearly insuperable dispute as a counter-party to negotiations,” the referee said

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