₦airaland Forum

Good

RIP to him...

Do both.

Congrats guy.

Beautiful

Nice.

Oh why ...

God lives ...

What...

k

Will contact soon.

This is good.

This thread is very helpful.

This is funny.

That lady is a demon, leave her or she will destroy you more.

What you think you are enjoying now will kill you later.

Stop this and run for your life.

Hate those creatures.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA face additional corruption allegations over a Nigerian oil deal, after the Federal Government said in a London lawsuit that it believed a handful of executives, including Chief Executive Officers, were tied to more than $1bn in bribery payments.

The Federal Government had in December last year filed a $1.1bn lawsuit against Shell and Eni in a commercial court in London in relation to a 2011 oilfield deal in Nigeria.

In court documents filed in early April, the Nigerian government said the oil companies’ senior managers agreed in 2011 to make a large payment for an offshore oil block, Oil Prospecting Licence 245, understanding the money would trickle down to government officials and senior executives from both companies, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

The filing singles out individuals who haven’t previously been caught up in the scandal, including a former Shell CEO, Peter Voser, and Maarten Wetselaar, the current head of its large natural gas business.

The allegations are the latest bombshells in a year-old dispute over exploration rights to OPL 245 that has spread to courtrooms throughout Europe. In addition to Shell and its partner, Eni, Nigeria separately sued JPMorgan Chase & Co. for transferring payments for the deal, while both oil companies and some executives face a criminal trial in Milan.

The acquisition of OPL 245 was “part of a fraudulent and corrupt scheme that involved the payment of bribes. The scheme also involved (or at least intended) the payment of bribes to Shell and/or Eni executives,” the Federal Government said in a court filing.

A Shell spokeswoman said the transaction was “fully legal” and if improper payments were made, they were done without the knowledge of the company.

An Eni spokeswoman said the London case is a “mere duplication” of a case related to the Milan trial. Voser is currently interim CEO at ABB Ltd., which directed questions on OPL 245 to Shell.

Shell declined to make Wetselaar available for an interview and commented on his behalf, according to Bloomberg.

The Nigerian government is seeking more than $1bn in damages as well as the right to revoke Shell and Eni’s license to OPL 245, which may have billions of barrels of oil.

OPL 245 was created in 1998, when the then Petroleum Minister, Dan Etete, carved out the offshore licence and awarded it to his own company, the Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd.

Through successive regimes, it was taken from him, awarded to Shell, and then given back, locking the companies and the government in legal disputes.

To win control of OPL 245, Shell and Eni paid the Nigerian government $1.1bn. The companies agree the payment was made, but disagree about whether those funds then went to bribes.

According to accusations laid out by the government in the lawsuit, the plan from the start was that former Nigerian government officials, including President Goodluck Jonathan, and Shell and Eni executives would receive personal payouts.

Some of the allegations in the lawsuit, however, have been fiercely contested in the Milan criminal case.

The Nigerian complaint recounts allegations that Roberto Casula, a senior Eni executive, got $50m in cash delivered to his home. But lawyers for Casula, Guido Alleva, and Giuseppe Fornari, say that prosecutors in Milan weren’t able to back up the story.

They said the one witness called to testify about the issue wasn’t able to confirm the allegations.

In another payment recounted in the lawsuit, Peter Robinson, then Shell’s regional vice president, ended up with “several hundred million Swiss franc” Nigeria believes was related to the OPL 245 deal that he may have intended to distribute to others.

Etete kept as much as $400m for himself, which was “used on lavish personal expenditure for Etete and his family,” according to the Nigerian government’s court document. Some of that money was also allegedly used to pay a fine for money laundering Etete incurred during the period he was negotiating over OPL 245.

A spokesman for Jonathan said he was unaware of the lawsuit. A spokesman for Etete couldn’t be reached to comment.

After the payment in 2011, Shell and Eni were awarded the licence, but the deal quickly fell apart. JPMorgan told Shell that one bank had rejected its attempt to transfer the initial $1.1bn payment, according to the lawsuit. That bank had concerns the money was earmarked for Etete, according to the filing.

JPMorgan previously said in a separate filing that the bank returned the funds “for compliance reasons.”

The lawsuit recounts how a former UK lawyer, who was paid $2m, walked into a London police station in January 2014 with a suitcase of cash, and explained he’d received it as part of an “arrangement” with Etete.

The Nigerian government said none of the transactions could have happened without the support or willful “blind eye” of Shell CEO, Peter Voser; former CFO, Simon Henry; and current head of integrated gas, Wetselaar, among others. It claimed that Shell’s oil and gas exploration director at the time, Malcolm Brinded, was “closely involved.”

Brinded, who is also on trial in Milan, was said to have pointed to a previous statement denying wrongdoing.

Further, the government said Claudio Descalzi, who was then head of exploration at Eni, was close to the OPL 245 negotiations. He has since been promoted to CEO and remains in that position. He is a defendant in the Milan case, and has denied any illegal behaviour related to OPL 245.

Shell, Eni and other defendants in the London case have 45 days to respond to the court filing dated April 8. The Milan trial is ongoing and could take years. Two men that helped negotiate the settlement but didn’t work directly for either company have already been found guilty.

Source: PUNCH.

This is a very good development.

The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit has vowed sanctions for any commercial bank which allowed transactions from any local government account without monies first reaching the LG account.

In addition, the agency said no cash withdrawal exceeding N500,000 per day could be made from any local government account with effect from June 1,2019, noting that any other transaction must be done through valid cheques or electronic funds transfer.

The NFIU in an emailed statement by its acting Chief Media Analyst, Ahmed Dikko, on Monday, directed all financial institutions, relevant stakeholders, public servants and the public to ensure full compliance with the provisions of the guidelines which had been submitted to financial institutions and relevant enforcement agencies.

It stated that the directive was sequel to findings which indicated that cash withdrawals and transactions of the State and Joint Local Government Accounts posed the “biggest corruption, money laundering and security threats at the grassroots levels and to the entire financial system and the country as a whole.”

The anti-graft agency further explained that the measures were necessitated by the threats of isolation of the Nigerian financial system by other international financial systems on account of the deficiencies in the nation’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing implementation.

The NFIU explained that it would not allow the system to suffer the deliberate and expensive infractions or violations by public officials and private business interests.

It said, “Henceforth, all errant individuals and companies will be allowed to face direct international and locally targeted sanctions, in order not to allow any negative consequences to fall on the entire country.

“To be precise, with effect from 1st June, any bank that allows any transaction from any local government account without monies first reaching a particular local government account will be sanctioned 100 per cent both locally and internationally.”

“In addition, a provision is also made to the effect that there shall be no cash withdrawal from any local government for a cumulative amount exceeding N500,000 per day. Any other transaction must be done through valid cheques or electronic funds transfer.”

The agency further disclosed that the complete guidelines had been released to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria; the Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission; the Chairman, Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and Chief Executive Officers of all banks and other financial institutions.

“Any state government that is willing to seek any expert economic advice in the unlikely event of these guidelines constituting an inconvenience to the management of the state can work with the NFIU or CBN,” the statement added.

The Chairman, Human Resource Development Centre, Mr Olanrewaju Suraju, described the initiative as right step in the right direction, saying it would curb free flow of money and financial crimes.

He added that it would promote better accountability and forestall a situation where state governors hijack local government accounts.

Suraju said, “This will strongly encourage and provide all the necessary support for the anti-corruption agencies and the NFIU in this regard. The CBN, the ICPC and the EFCC must also rise up to this challenge by ensuring that they collaborate with and support the NFIU in achieving this.

“Not only the liable local government officials should be investigated and prosecuted; the bank concerned should also not only be fined but also prosecuted accordingly.

“If this is effectively enforced, it will allow for the operations of the local government account by local government officials. And also to track where governors are usurping the powers of the local government chairmen.”

But the Executive Chairman, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, Mr Debo Adeniran, said the N500,000 daily cash withdrawal threshold might be too low for the operations of LGAs.

He advocated that it be moved up to about N2.5m.

“I think the cash withdrawal limit should be moved up to about N2.5m because there are occasions when for network reasons some payments have to be made.

“Even we, in the civil society organisation, sometimes we want to pay honorarium or transport support for those who attend our programmes and sometimes, we have more than 1,000 people and we want to pay each participant N1, 000. We cannot do transfer in all the cases because it will be cumbersome.

“So, N500,000 is too little for local governments. For individuals, that is the limit. For a local government, I think it should be more than that.”

On its part, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, said the initiative should not be limited to the LGAs but should be extended to the state and federal levels.

SERAP’s Deputy Director, Mr Kolawole Oludare, said, “The NFIU directive though welcome as an anti-corruption strategy is somewhat misplaced in the light of grand corruption at the state and federal levels.

“Corruption and attendant money laundering is better curbed at not only the local government but also all levels of government by the abolishment of security votes.”

Source: PUNCH.

This matter don too much!

Ugly view.

Beautiful ladies.

Nice.

Thank God you are back.

How come?

This is absolutely true.

The power of a trap is it secret. Once you know and identify a trap, it loses it power over you. And that's why you must get close to God so He can empower you with the Holy Spirit, who will reveal secrets to you, and show you who people really are.

All Glory to God.

Praise the Lord, ..... Hallelujah!!!

Nice read.

As for me I love Psalms 1:3

Psalms 1:3 (EASYENGLISH BIBLE 2018)

‘He will become like a tree planted by rivers of water.’ ‘It will give its fruit in its season. Its leaves will not fall’ ‘Everything that he does will be very good.’

Praise the Lord, He blesses His people.