Former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mallam Mohammed Bello Adoke, has accused former President Olusegun Obasanjo of being the architect of his eight- year travails after leaving office in 2015.
Adoke also accused former President Muhammadu Buhari, ex-Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami and former acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, of allegedly playing roles in his “unjust persecution.”
These assertions are contained in Adoke’s new book titled: “Inside story of the $1.3bn Nigerian Oil block” formally presented to the public in Abuja on Thursday.
According to the reviewer of the book, Dr. Reuben Abati, “OPL 245 is an oil block, awarded by the Nigerian government which later snowballed into legal disputes and international arbitrations with regard to its acquisition and ownership involving the Federal Government of Nigeria, Shell and Malabu Oil, as well as a large cast of actors across courts in Nigeria, the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.
“Whereas OPL 245, a versatile deep-water offshore asset of the Niger Delta was one of other similar licenses awarded to encourage indigenous participation in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector,
it is caught in a complex world of scandals, allegations of corruption, bribery, and so much melodrama in and out of the courtrooms.”
Adoke was Attorney General and Minister of Justice from April 2010 to June 2015. “At the time, the OPL 245 saga began in 2003, he was not yet in government nor was he either when the block was revoked by the Obasanjo government on July 2, 2001 or when a settlement agreement was signed in 2006.
“But when he was appointed Attorney General and Minister of Justice in 2010, OPL 245 became one of the matters he inherited as Attorney General, it was during this period that the Jonathan administration confirmed the award of OPL 245 to Malabu,” the book reviewer said.
In the book Adoke gave a “an extensive and comprehensive account of the allegations about his role, the burden that he has had to endure in terms of what he calls clinical persecution or the lies and lies and more lies, that were told against him and his eventual vindication,” Abati said.
Adoke claimed in the book that the politicisation of OPL 245 was caused by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, “who woke up one morning and set OPL 245 on fire. He revoked the block without giving any reasons, now resulting in a series of litigations involving the NNPC, Malabu and Shell which stall the development of the asset.”
According to Adoke, one of his first assignments as Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice was to help “unpack the logjam” and he had advised that the 2006 Settlement Agreement was binding on the Federal Government of Nigeria.
He said in the resolution agreement that was arrived at in April 2011, Shell and Nigeria-Agip Exploration Limited will pay $1.3 billion into an escrow account with J.P. Morgan in London, while Malabu will receive $1.09 billion as compensation as full and final settlement.
As a chief law officer of the Federation at the time, Adoke said he was convinced that he had given the government proper advice in the circumstances.
On May 29, 2015, after the Jonathan administration had left office and the Muhammadu Buhari administration had been sworn-in, Adoke said he received messages from those in the know that he was going to be hounded by the new government. He said he was in fact advised to leave town.
He said he heeded the advice and proceeded for further studies at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He said it was in the Netherlands that his travails began.
He said he was accused of taking a bribe of N300 million, $2.2 million at the time, from the OPL 245 agreement and another N801 million and other cases of money laundering and abuse of office.
Adoke said even though he insisted on his innocence, he nonetheless, remained in exile from May 29, 2015 to December 19, 2019.
He said in between, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission filed cases against him in court and that his name was mentioned in legal disputes in Italy, the US, and the UK.
Reliving his ordeal, Adoke said that his apartment was raided in the Netherlands and his houses in Nigeria were searched.
He added that a warrant of arrest was issued against him internationally, leading to his arrest and detention for 35 days by Interpol in Dubai, UAE and upon his return to Nigeria, he spent another 55 days in EFCC detention.
He said he was even interrogated over the P&ID matter, adding that it was not until April 2024 that he was fully cleared of all allegations of wrongdoing in Nigerian courts, resulting in his vindication.
Adoke said: “When President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015, he chose to come after me. Agreed that he misruped Nigeria for eight years but he at least got a distinction in one thing, destroying my name.
“He turned me to the poster boy of a scandal that never was. I was arrested and detained in the UAE for 35 days. I was arrested and detained for another 55 days in Nigeria by the EFCC.
“Anywhere my name is mentioned today it is Malabu and OPL 245 that usually come to mind, thanks to Buhari who harboured a collection of bitter feelings against me for reasons best known to him.”
In some apparent controversial remarks in the book Adoke claimed that “former President Olusegun Obasanjo is clever by half and that he owes Nigerians an apology for blatantly lying. Obasanjo failed the ultimate leadership test in the matter of OPL 245. It was disingenuous of Obasanjo to have tried to distort historical facts.”
On Buhari, he alleged: “Buhari, was driven by vengeance. Vengeance for the Abacha family. He believed I was unfair to the Abachas in the OPL 245 deal.”
In the book under the title: “A Den of the Defamers,” Adoke came down hard on those he considered his traducers, namely, “President Muhammadu Buhari, a friend and defender of the Abacha family. Professor John Padden, author of the shabby biography of Muhammadu Buhari.
“Muhammad Sani or Muhammad Abacha, who claims he owns 50% of Malabu, which he did not pay for, and yet wanted a cut from the Malabu windfall.”
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He also listed other who seem to have been part of the grand conspiracy against him to include Osinbajo and a lawyer friend “whose firm and partners were targeting a commission of between five and 35%.”
Others are Mr. Abubakar Malami, Adoke’s successor as AGF, UK-based Global Witness, an Italian prosecutor called Fabio de Pasquale, HEDA Resource Center, a Nigerian NGO working with Global Witness, Mr. Rizlanudin Muhammad, ‘who lied’, Sahara Reporters, which Adoke calls an anything goes website, and Premium Times newspaper.
He claimed that all of them
were involved in character assassination and the mudslinging agenda against him.
He also detailed the role the EFCC under Magu allegedly played in his travails, what he referred to as the “Magu Pandemic” and one EFCC prosecutor, who he dismissed as ‘one low life miserable person,” according to the book reviewer.
He labelled Osinbajo as the ‘conflicted Mr. Clean, who likes to be seen as the epitome of transparency, honesty and accountability.’
He described Malami as a ‘betrayer and a viper’ and Fabio de Pasquale as the ‘Italian jobber’ whose eventual demotion by Italy’s Superior Council of the Judiciary, Adoke celebrated.
He also gloated over former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele’s travails in the book.
“Death finally caught up with the hunter,” Adoke writes sarcastically, according Abati.
“I was discharged and acquitted, but the scars remain,” Adoke said as part of his closing remarks in the book.
In his speech during the public unveiling of the book, Adoke said he has forgiven all those who had a hand in his ordeal and persecution for eight years after leaving office as minister.
Adoke told claimed Magu had come to apologise to him for the role he played in the conspiracy to tarnish his image for acts he never committed.
Adoke said: “And finally, Your Excellency, I’m grateful to the Almighty Allah for keeping me alive to witness this day…Permit me to say, Your Excellency, that I have forgiven all those who have hands in my ordeal.
“Before the presentation of this book, sir, I say boldly and clearly that I admire the courage of Ibrahim Mustapha Magu in coming forward to make up with me, to apologize to me, and to empathize with me for the role each and every one of them played in my travail. I have forgiven him.
“I see him as a friend, and I hope he will take steps to also make up with others that may have been victim of his activities in office.”