Mohammed Bello Adoke, former attorney-general of the federation (AGF), has written a letter of complaint to Abubakar Malami over Nigeria’s depositions before a UK court in its case against JP Morgan Chase.

Nigeria is claiming more than $1.7 billion in compensation for the bank’s role in the controversial Malabu/OPL 245 transaction of 2011.

Shell and ENI had transferred $1.3 billion to Nigeria’s account at JP Morgan — made up of $1.1 billion payment to Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd, the original owners of OPL 245, and $210 million to the government as signature bonus.

Nigeria is arguing that JP Morgan was “grossly negligent” in transferring payments to Malabu, alleging that there was corruption on the part of its government officials, specifically mentioning Adoke.

FALSE DEPOSITIONS’

In a letter written by his lawyer, Paul Erokoro, to Malami, the AGF, and dated March 3, 2022, Adoke said the allegations of corruption and money laundering levelled against him in the High Court of Justice Business and Property Courts of England and Wales Admiralty and Commercial Court are false.

Adoke said Malami had written to both President Muhammadu Buhari and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2017 to affirm that there was no evidence of corruption in the OPL 245 deal.


He said Ibe Kachikwu, former minister of state for petroleum resources, also wrote to Buhari in 2017, based on Malami’s legal opinion, that the resolution agreement on OPL 245 which was reached by the President Olusegun Obasanjo government with Malabu in 2006 was binding on Nigeria.

Adoke said Justice BFM Nyako also delivered a judgement in 2018 to the effect that his role in the OPL 245 agreement was based on lawful presidential directive for which he does not have any personal liability as he was merely carrying out an order.

‘FUTURE AGF CAN SAY YOU ARE CORRUPT TOO’

Erokoro commended Malami for the “high quality” of his legal advice to the government but said he found it “remarkable that you are portraying him (Adoke) as corrupt for giving the same advice that you have so wisely given the government. Surely you would not expect a future Attorney-General to say that you too were corrupted by Malabu since you gave the same legal advice that had earlier been given by our client.

“There can be no doubt that you did the right thing in advising the government to bring the Shell/Malabu dispute to a tidy close so that Nigeria can earn the huge revenue promised by the OPL 245 Oil Field. There is no fraud whatsoever in your legal advice on this point, just as there was none in our client’s”.

Adoke’s lawyer wrote: “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 N300m 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 N300m was not gratification from the Malabu transactions, but the 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.

“The evidence before the court is that Mr. Abubakar later sold the same property to the Central Bank of Nigeria when our client could not pay the balance of N200m. Your witnesses even produced documents to prove the loan/mortgage transaction and further testified that the N300m refunded by Mr. Abubakar had been used to repay the Bank loan and extinguish the mortgage.

“As you know, the Italian Court has discharged and acquitted all defendants, including Mr. Abubakar Aliyu, of the criminal charges that had been filed in that country on account of the OPL 245 Resolution Agreement of 2011, and the prosecutors in that case are being investigated for withholding from the Court, evidence that would have further exonerated the defendants.”

WITHDRAWAL OF FORGED EMAIL CHARGE

Adoke said he had also complained to the police over an email he purportedly sent to JP Morgan in 2011 over the OPL 245 deal when he was no longer a minister as well as a stage-managed radio interview.

The police report indicted Olanrewaju Suraju, a civil society activist, he said.

“In spite of the clear findings by the Police, your office later amended the charges in respect of the forged email. From what is now reported of the proceedings in England, it is reasonable to conclude that your office deliberately amended the charge of forgery against Mr. Suraju in order to keep alive the fiction being passed off as truth to the High Court of England – that our client had sent the forged email,” Eroroko wrote.

“It is disheartening that the good name of our country is being associated with such unethical methods in a misguided view of ‘national interest’. It appears that the office of the Attorney General has embraced the discredited doctrines of ‘the end justifies the means’ and ‘all is fair in war’. To say the least, this is most regrettable.”

He asked the AGF, “as an Officer in the Temple of Justice”, is required to, at all times, “place the true facts before the court. This is irrespective of the interest at play”.

“Finally, we are to convey our client’s respect for the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and his abiding faith in your ability to discharge the constitutional duty required of the office as well as your sense of justice, which should propel you to take immediate steps to correct the false depositions made against him in the on-going proceedings before the Commercial Court in the United Kingdom, and indeed, all other proceedings involving him,” the lawyer said.

The letter was copied to the court manager of the Business and Property Court, Commercial List, and Nigeria’s solicitors — Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, and Andrew Mitchell

TikTok and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) have announced a first-of-its-kind partnership that will bring football content to fans, globally.

It marks TikTok’s first major brand partnership in Africa and supports the continent’s most popular sport – football.

TikTok will be supporting the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations, Africa’s biggest sporting event, kicking off on 9 January 2022 in Cameroon.

TikTok will also be a part of the action for the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League 2022 and the TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations 2022 in Morocco.

The collaboration between TikTok and CAF will allow fans to celebrate the tournaments’ unforgettable moments together.

With everything from pre and post match content and highlights, to football-related challenges, TikTok will become a home for the spirit and passion of these iconic sporting events.

TikTok will be offering its community new ways of creating and engaging with African football, with cool in-app effects, a special hub for tournaments as well as cool features and filters for the football community to enjoy.

This partnership comes as TikTok cements its position as the perfect platform for football fandom and culture across both men’s and women’s games, with the #football and #Soccer hashtags racking up an incredible 273 billion & 108 billion views to-date, respectively.

On the continent, #AfricanFootball with over 48.3 million views is proof that Africans continue to love football content on the platform, while creating great review content and participating in fun-filled challenges.

Earlier this year, the fast growth of sporting talent, fan communities, creative sports trends and commentary on the platform led to TikTok becoming the first digital entertainment platform to sponsor a major international tournament for UEFA with EURO 2020.

With over 1.4 million followers on TikTok, the official CAF TikTok account has also fast become Africa’s footballing go-to fandom & with tournaments such as AFCON making a return on the continent, we can expect to see continued growth and love for the sport on the platform.

Boniswa Sidwaba, TikTok Content Operations Manager for Africa, said: “Fans on the African continent have not been able to come together to enjoy the beautiful game of football due to COVID-19 regulation.

For us, this is also an opportunity to bring African football fans around the world together again, online, starting with the much anticipated TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations. As a proudly multicultural continent, Africa is beaming with creativity and talent.

“We see a lot of potential to harness and cultivate creative football expression on our platform. We certainly look forward to inspiring fans to celebrate and participate in content unique to TikTok, in the most African way possible, providing great entertainment for the community.”

CAF General Secretary, Mr Veron Mosengo-Omba said: “We are truly delighted to have TikTok come on board as an official partner. Football content in Africa is in high demand and together with TikTok we are able to create and encourage the online community to engage in and create the type of content that will take both brands to new markets.

We look forward to working with TikTok in creating true African football experiences for fans around the world. This partnership recognises CAF not just as a football body but our position as the single-biggest football entertainment producers in Africa, giving fans everywhere, world-class football experiences throughout the year.”

More announcements on what the football community can expect on TikTok will be made in the coming days. Fans are encouraged to follow TikTok Africa social media pages for updates.

Determined to equip young Nigerians with the creative and technical tools needed to leverage video content creation for their own businesses, SBI Media has perfected plans to organise the second edition of its media workshop.

The one-day workshop scheduled to hold in Ikeja, Lagos on November 27 will focus on content design, equipment selection, post-production, channel maintenance, and brand partnerships.

Rotimi Bankole, chief executive officer of SBI Media Limited, said that audiences and brands are currently looking for video, adding that more businesses are producing videos as part of their marketing programmes.

According to Bankole, the SBI Media Workshop aims to help more Nigerian youths leapfrog the current stars by removing the guesswork that most newcomers often have to deal with in the beginning.

“In Nigeria, more video creators have continued to emerge on the leading social networks – Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok,” he said.

Bankole said the workshop is in alignment with the United Nations declaration that sees 2021 as the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development.

He said the UN believed that the creative economy is one of the world’s most rapidly growing sectors contributing 3 percent of global Gross domestic product.

“The dream profession of 30 percent of young people in the United States and the United Kingdom between the age of 8 and 17 is to be a YouTuber. This shows the wild popularity of video, not just as a means of entertainment but also a viable business for thousands of people worldwide,” Bankole said.

He further said that a 2018 study by Animoto, a cloud-based video production company, revealed that 80 percent of video marketers believed that video ads on social media give satisfactory results.

He noted that facilitators at the 2020 edition were the biggest names in social media content creation, including YouTuber Fisayo Fosudo and comedian MC Lively (Michael Sani).

Other speakers include Kayode Adegbite, financial expert and chief executive officer of MediaCrush; Tolulope Aderemi, managing, Perchstone and Graeys; Bola Popoola, food brand content creator; and Oke Umurhohwo, Itel Mobile marketing manager among others.

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