A former Nigerian Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, has denied any complicity in a case filed by the Nigerian government against an American Bank, JP Morgan Chase.
Mr Adoke raised these concerns in a letter written to the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, by his counsel, Paul Erekoro.
The former minister argued that the Nigerian government’s argument that he contacted JP Morgan and sent an email using the mail of Aliyu Abubakar’s shell company was “baseless and false”.
Newsmen reported how a London high court last week began hearing of a lawsuit filed by the Nigerian government against JP Morgan Chase in the controversial Malabu scandal.
In the suit, Nigeria is claiming more than $1.7 billion for the bank’s role in the controversial deal.
The nation alleges JP Morgan was “grossly negligent” in its decision to transfer funds paid by oil giants Shell and Eni into an escrow account controlled by a former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete. Nigeria’s lawyer, Roger Masefield, argued that the nation’s case rested on proving that there was fraud and JP Morgan was aware of the risk of fraud.
Sahara Reporters reported that the Nigerian Government equally informed the court that Mr Adoke contacted JP Morgan through phone call and email. The report claimed that the Nigerian Government also stated that Mr Adoke “acted while he was no longer in the ministerial position, an act linked to impersonation and fraud.”
The news platform said that in a court document it obtained, the government “reaffirmed that (Mr) Adoke telephoned the bank JP Morgan and even sent emails severally using the [email protected] email address.”
In a related development, the email address has been a subject of controversies in Nigeria. The Nigerian government is prosecuting the chairman of Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) Resource Centre, Olanrewaju Suraju, over alleged forgery of emails said to be linked to Mr Adoke.
The government in its suit against Mr Suraju claimed he forged an email to implicate Mr Adoke in the OPL 245 saga while also claiming that Mr Suraju also forged and circulated the audio of a phone interview said to have been between Mr Adoke and JP Morgan.
But in a statement Thursday, Mr Adoke argued that allowing “unverified” information to be presented before the court, to the effect that he and a former Minister of Petroleum, Mr Etete, committed the offence of “money laundering by facilitating the payment of the funds to Etete and Malabu Oil & Gas Limited through the Deposit Account,” was baseless.
He argued that Mr Malami allowed those instructions to be given, or allowed those “facts” to be presented in a court of law, when he was fully aware that they were not true. He also made reference to how Mr Malami had written to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2017, informing the anti-graft agency that “evidence does not appear to have clearly revealed the case of fraud against the parties in view of their claim, acting in their official capacities.”
He argued further that Ibe Kachikwu, the then Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, had also appraised the agreements and in his letter to the Chief of Staff, raised the alarm about the potential negative effect of any international arbitration over the matter.
The former minister made reference to a judgement of the Federal High Court delivered by Justice Binta Nyako, which said that his involvement in the negotiations leading to the implementation of the controversial settlement agreement was in furtherance of the directives of the president.
By its failure to appeal that judgement, he argued, the government agreed that the judgment represents the truth of the matters that it decided.
“Unfortunately and contrary to your own legal advice and in defiance of the un-appealed and binding declarations made by the Federal High Court, your office filed charges in another court of coordinate jurisdiction against the parties to the settlement agreements, with our client as one of the defendants,” Mr Adoke wrote in his letter to Mr Malami.
“You are also aware that even though at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, you had charged our client with receiving gratification in the sum of N300 million from Mr. Aliyu Abubakar on account of OPL 245, your witnesses, including the EFCC investigator, later admitted in sister proceedings at the Federal High Court that the said N300 million was not gratification from the Malabu transactions, but a refund of a loan taken by our client from Unity Bank to purchase a house from Mr. Abubakar, with the title documents to the property deposited as an equitable mortgage for the loan.”
He argued further that he had reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Malami’s office deliberately amended the charge of forgery against Mr. Suraju to sustain the ”fiction being passed off as truth to the English court.”
Mr Adoke said that those who signed the instructions that enabled the payment to Malabu Oil and Gas Limited pursuant to the OPL 245 Resolution Agreement of 2011 are walking freely without any insinuation that they were involved in any fraud or scam.
“Our client is addressing this protest letter to you because it is not possible for you to be unaware that lies are being told about him in court proceedings filed by the Federal Government in a Commercial Court in the United Kingdom and the fact that grave injustice will be done to him if urgent steps are not taken by your office to properly inform and guide the English Court on the facts needed to assist the court to arrive at a just determination of the suit,” the letter reads in part.
“The Attorney General is further reminded that as an officer in the temple of Justice, he is required to, at all times, place the true facts before the court. This is irrespective of the interest at play. The Attorney General, therefore, has a duty in the present case to bring to the attention of the court, all exculpating circumstances.”
