If only to serve as a firm example to active and potential launderers, the current allegations against former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke had better lead to something concrete.

By the way the law works, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke will remain innocent until proven guilty, despite the weight of evidence stacked against her. Among the indicting material now in public circulation are transcripts of a conversation between her and some of the other persons involved in the laundering charges, where the former Minster elaborates on the activities and acquisitions which had been made with the laundered funds.

It will not be straightforward for the prosecutors to prove that it is absolutely her voice and you can expect her lawyers and defendants to hold on to that bit for as long as they can. However, the tranches of transactions made through her proxies, duly registered companies in their names as either owners or beneficiaries, will surely stand against her.

For the five years that she was the Minster of Petroleum in Nigeria, Mrs Alison-Madueke was almost always under the microscope of many observers who believed she may not have been running the Petroleum sector with the utmost transparency. She appeared to have an unrestricted control over the deals of the NNPC and its subsidiary companies in ways that no previous Minister had before her. One of those who questioned the NNPC’s transactions was the former CBN Governor and present Emir of Kano, Mohammed Sanusi II, after which he was unceremoniously dumped by then President Goodluck Jonathan.

With Jonathan’s inability to retain the mandate of Nigerians after the elections, Mrs Alison-Madueke has avoided the public space and has virtually been on the run; it almost seems inevitable that she must have done more than a few questionable deals that drifted directly to her personal accounts.

Should she be tried and found guilty, handing her a considerable sentence for money laundering will create a much needed consciousness amongst Nigerian public officials that they will not loot the nation’s treasury and escape unhindered. Her apparent international esteem and upper-class family connections will bring many others, who probably feel they are untouchable, down to earth.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE | YNAIJA

Get her on tax evasion or theft. It's very simple.

A wish...
That woman can bring down a third if not half of the top political class....and perhaps that'll be good for the country. But do they have they have the liver to do it? I doubt.
But to get the fact correct most of her misdeeds bothers on granting oil lifting rights to cronies. Not much of deeping hands into govt vault. The thing is the likes of Aluko and Omokore profited the same way western companies have been swimming in our petroleum money. Only as it is always, we blacks usually don't control our appetite once we come upon money.

What we should really gather from this episode is an understanding of how the west rape us blind by cornering over 60% of oil lifting licenses. There are others who made as much as Aluko but wasn't so profligate. Yes other Nigerians did make hundreds of millions lifting oil.
So to sum it all Deziani wasn't entirely bad. In fact her decision to deny so many western companies the oil lifting licenses which they profiteered from was the beginning of Jonathan's problem with the west.

It all boils down to Nigeria's inability to assert itself at least on international trade. We are only lucky China and other east Asian countries development have open up another market for us.

Just imagine that over the years Nigerians were the ones in total control of our oil trade....