By: Ikenna Oluka

Of the 50 million agreed with the former minister and owner of Malabu, Dan Etete, as alleged “compensation” for his work as a legal adviser in the sale of Opl 245, “I received only part”, 10 million, “and I hope to be able to regain possession of others. I’m not going to sue.” This was said by the former Nigerian Minister of Justice Bayo Ojo in a passage of his examination made in Milan at the trial with at the center, an alleged bribe of 1 billion and 92 million dollars paid by Eni for the acquisition of the Opl-245 oil field in the African country and which sees among the defendants the CEO of the ‘Dog six-legg ed’ Claudio Descalzi, his predecessor Paolo Scaroni, their accuser and former manager of the Sahara area Vincenzo Armanna and also the same company and Shell.

For the former Minister of Nigeria, that 50 million dollars, which according to the investigation documents is a tranche of the maxi bribe, of which a part was also paid to him, was nothing more than – as it was written in an agreement – 5 percent of the 92 million paid by the Italian oil company.

A version made by the former minister, heard by videoconference, which does not match that recorded by the former number one of the ‘six-legged dog’ for the Sahara area in April 2016, as he had claimed in front of investigators and investigators that the money “recovered by Bayo Ojo has never been returned because not only in Italy at that time the price of gold was very high” and “the margin would have been extremely modest”, but also for its “economic difficulties. Bayo Ojo – continues the report – actually wanted to have this money back but I involved him in some business and I found him some customers in Nigeria and then, in the end, he was satisfied. The former manager of the oil group would have ‘coordinated’ with Gianfranco Falcioni, former Italian consul in Nigeria, and Ojo the transfer of the alleged maxi bribe paid by Eni to the account of the Nigerian government at Jp Morgan Chase in London and subsequently received from the former minister the sum of 917,952 euros with causal “Armanna inheritance” and that for the Prosecutor’s Office would be a share of the alleged bribes for the operation.

In his reconstruction Ojo did not deny that he had collected $10 million, according to him, part of the compensation for his “legal advice” which should actually have been $50 million, a figure equal to 5 percent of the amount paid to Malabu and Dan Etete (the former minister of oil among the defendants) for the acquisition of the field.

The former manager of Eni VincenzoArmanna would still be in business with the former Nigerian Minister of Justice Bayo Ojo, who for a “business” in the gold sector has paid the manager 1.2 million dollars. This was explained by Ojo himself today in the courtroom at the trial with at its center an alleged international corruption of 1 billion and 92 million dollars for the acquisition of the oil field Opl-245 in the African country and which sees among the defendants the same Armanna, the CEO of the ‘six-legged dog’ Claudio Descalzi, the former number one Paolo Scaroni and also Eni and Shell. During his examination Ojo said that he still has “communications” with Armanna because “we are interested in opening up this business” which aims to expand to the renewable energy sector and oil. Activities of which “there is nothing in writing”, and for which they were last heard “last year”. The former Nigerian minister continued: “The money has not been asked back because we still want to work together”.

Bayo Ojo, who in the indictment is referred to as one of the recipients of the bribes, pressed by the questions of the prosecutor Sergio Spadaro about the work he had done since 2009 – after he had left the public office during which he had taken part in the proceedings to reassign Malabu to former minister Dan Etete – explained that his task would be to seek “one or more buyers of the Block but I was not lucky enough to find them”. He didn’t talk about the details of his assignment, however, claiming professional secrecy, but he specified that during his work he didn’t know about the lawsuit initiated by Shell nor that the Dutch and Italian oil companies “could be buyers” of Opl 245.

The former Attorney General then said that the 10 million were transferred from Rocky Top Resources “to his personal account because his firm did not have a foreign account”. Of these, then, a million and 200 thousand would be paid in 2012 to Armanna to start an activity in the gold sector.

Before receiving this amount, he reconstructed, of those 50 million, 5 should have been allocated, as a reward for the ‘service’, to the former deputy consul Gianfranco Falcioni who with his Petrol Service would have to open a guarantee account on which to pass the billion and 92 million, while the rest would go to his private and personal accounts to the extent of 20 and 25 million. “The payment has never been made”, as the agreement was revoked” in the summer of 2011 due to the refusal of the Banca della Svizzera Italiana to credit the maxi amount sent by the London-based Jp Morgan Chase Bank. Figured it would eventually be deposited in Nigerian accounts.

Abubakar Aliyu’s exam, scheduled for today, has been missed because, as he himself stated, he only discovered this morning that he is being investigated in a case (CONGO) which is an excerpt of what the Milanese trial is underway for, and therefore that he does not know the accusations made against him and that he cannot assess whether or not to answer. He recovers on February 13th.

Highlights of the hearing of Adebayo Ojo

*He agreed with Malabu/Etete on a $50 million fee for legal advice provided between 2009 and 2011 for which he should have contributed to legal advice on behalf of Etete and found buyers for OPL245. He says that he did not find it and that he knew that both Eni and Shell could have been possible purchasers of OPL245 only after reading the agreement itself (but shouldn’t he have been one of those who knew about the contents of the agreement?). One wonders what Ojo has done to deserve those 50 million (of which to date he claims to have received only 10) received in his personal accounts from Rocky Top Resources. He considers them part of his fee, the investigators part of his cue.

*Ojo had reached an agreement with Etete to receive 5% of the deal amount ($50 million) in exchange for his legal services. Ojo did not provide details of its business, but merely stated that it had looked for potential buyers but had not found them. Faced with the PM’s requests for clarification, the former minister opposed professional secrecy and did not reveal any further details.

*The original agreement provided that the transaction would be managed by the Falcioni petrol service, which would guarantee the success of the transaction by collecting Euro 5 million. The remaining 45 were to be paid in two tranches to the account of the law firm in Ojo and to another personal account. The agreement was faded after the stop imposed by the BSI bank of Lugano on the transfer made by Eni through JP Morgan of London.

*He says that he is aware of Dan Etete’s interests in Malabu and that he does not see any conflicts of interest in his conduct, on the one hand former oil minister and on the other hand person with interests in Malabu.

*He says that on the reassignment of Opl 245 has received pressure to proceed with the reassignment of the Opl245 block to Malabu because with the stalemate of lawsuits and arbitrations were losing money. With the reallocation, the immediate benefit to the Nigerian government was the $200 million “signature bonus”. Finally, he says that the choice of reassignment to Malabu was discussed at the General Assembly.