₦airaland Forum

The Malabu scandal is one of the largest scandals in Nigeria's history, it's sad that we haven't updated the laws that allowed this to happen more than two decades later but what Happened exactly #OpenOilLicense

On April 29, 1998, Malabu Oil and Gas Limited was awarded one of the most valuable oil blocks in Africa, OPL 245 just 9 days after the company was registered with the CAC and without the formal submission of a prospecting license application form.

The Owners of the Company were- Mohammed Sani (An alias for Mohammed Abacha, the son of the Head of state, Sani Abacha) ; Kweku Amafegba (alias for Dan Etete, the then Minister of Petroleum Resources responsible for the award of license); & Wabi Hassan (Wife of Hasan Adamu)

Hasan Adamu is a close friend of General Sani Abacha and one time Nigeria's ambassador to the US.

Just 9 days after the company was registered, Malabu Oil and Gas Limited was awarded two oil blocks: OPL 245 and OPL 214.

Registration papers show that Mohammed Sani (Abacha)! Owned 50%, Dan Etete -30% and Wabi Hasan 20%.

Two months after Etete and Abacha awarded the licenses to themselves, Sani Abacha died. Immediately after his death, Etete moved to remove Mohamed Sani as the majority shareholder of Malabu.

By July 29, 1998: Etete's take over bid was successful - at least according to the CAC. New structure - Etete -50%, Adamu -30%, Abacha -20%

According to the CAC and Etete, Mohammed Sani agreed to reduce his shareholding to 20% and also resign as director of the company. The letter was signed by Rasky Gbinigie, a lawyer appointed as company secretary by Etete.

Mohammed Abacha has said in various court filings and petitions that this meeting never held, the EFCC holds the same position till date.

The sale of OPL 245 was revoked by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration in 1999 and the license was awarded to Shell Nigeria Petroleum Development Company limited, which was already a technical adviser to Malabu Oil and gas limited on the same license.

The award of the license to Shell did not follow the proper process, there was no public bid preceding the award.

Malabu sight redress from NASS, the House of Representatives concluded that the allocation to Shell was done in bad faith.

The House of Representatives passed a resolution that OPL245 should be returned to Malabu Oil and Gas Limited.

Shell Kicked and went to court.

By 2001, Dan Etete had secured the commitment of the Obasanjo administration that OPL 245 was not part of the licenses revoked by the Government, by April 2001, Malabu secured it's license for OPL 245.

However, being a fake company, Malabu lacked the technical or financial capability to operate the oil field. They decided to engage Shell (that came back to stab them in the back) as technical partners.

Shell Nigeria Ultra Deep Limited (SNUD) a subsidiary of Shell, And Malabu sighed an agreement where the former received 40% participating interest in the venture in a farm -in agreement.
The agreement is in prejudice to Condition 4B of the original allocation letter issued to Malabu that barred the participation of any international oil companies that are already operating in Nigeria.

In 2011, PECOS, a new player became involved in the ownership of Malabu. PECOS was officially owned by Oyewole Fasawe but was believed to be a front for other players. In February, Malabu board agreed for PECOS to pay $5m for the shared held by Wadi Adamu.

To back it up a bit, Wadi Adamu as a front for Hassan Adamu(the current Waikiki Adamawa) was instrumental in the formation of Malabu. In fact, he chose the company name, Malabu in reference to a village in Fufore LGA Adamawa, his state.

So, Wadi/Hasan sold the shares to PECOS (Fasawe). At the time of the transaction, Muhammed Abacha was in prison for corruption, he couldn't mount any challenge.

By July 2001, Dan Etete had fallen out with OBJ, So OBJ proceeded to revoke the award of OPL 245 to Malabu and have it to Malabu's technical partner. Shell.


By 2004, Shell signed a Production sharing Contract (PSC) for OPL 245 with NNPC. It was agreed that she'll would pay $210m as signature bonus. However they paid only $1m to FG and deposited the remaining $209m in an Escrow account with JP Morgan.

Shell Claimed that this measure was done pending the resolution of Malabu's lawsuit. Malabu lost the case in High Court and proceeded to the Court of Appeal.

Interesting enough, Malabu never paid the full signature bonus for the OPL that they underpriced ti themselves. Malabu paid only $2m out of the $20m it was supposed to pay, later gave the Government a Cheque of $18m that never cleared(and will never clear). I digress
On November 30, 2006, FG and Malabu reached an out of court settlement where OPL 245 was returned to the former after it was retrieved from Shell. She'll Protested the retrieval and filed a case at the international center for the settlement of disputes in DC.

In November 2007 a year after the block was re awarded to Malabu(now under full control of Etete) Etete was convicted on a money laundering charge in France, the conviction was upheld by the French Appeal court in 2009.

By 2010 Umaru Yaradua died and Goodluck Jonathan became President. Shortly after his assumption, he received technical advice from Mohamed Adoke, his Attorney General and Minister of Justice to return OPL 245 to Malabu.

Malabu, as a shell company that was set up just to get this license still lacked the technical and financial capabilities to operate OPL 245. Etete decided to open negotiations with two international oil companies, Shell and Eni, for offers to sell the license.

On April 29, 2011, about two weeks after 2011 elections, Malabu executed three agreements.
The first agreement was Block 245, Malabu Resolution agreement " between the FG and Malabu. FG agreed to pay Malabu $1bn as full and final settlements of its claims, interests of rights relating to OPL 245.

The second agreement, titled block 245 resolution agreement involved Agio and Shell's real to pay the exact same amount "for the proposes of FGN settling all and any existing claims and/or issues over block 245.

The third agreement was between Shell and the FG, Shell agreed to withdraw all legal suits against FG including the case in the international court. Everyone's happy
As part of the agreements, the $209m in the JP Morgan account (remember it?) would also be paid to FG.

These agreements were supposed to settle all the legal issues once and for all, or at least they thought so. It was supposed to clear the way for a clean transfer of the asset from Malabu to the oil companies

While they were all popping and celebrating the end of the problems, they forgot to invite one man into the room, Enter - Mohammed Sani (Abacha)

Mohammed Abacha wrote to Shell, Eni and Mr Adoke instructing then not to deal with Dan Etete as he was not a majority shareholder of Malabu and had no such authorization. Everybody ignored him

August 16, 2011 Adoke and Yerima (Minister of state for finance) authorized the transfer of $1.1bn from the FG account with JP Morgan to Malabu accounts controlled by Etete. First Bank -$401.5m. Bank PHB (Now Keystone) -$400m. Remaining probably in transmission.

Etete then transfered $523m into Abubakar Aliyu's account. Etete eventually told a British court he only got $250m and the rest was for other people. $290m was from in an account in the UK on the request of Emeka Obi and Ednan Agaev.

The $290m was made up of an initial $215m frozen as a result of Obi's EVP case and $75n for Ednan Egaev's ILC case in London. Obi won his case against Malabu so he transferred $110.5m to his Swiss account where it was also frozen.

Forward to 2015, Mohammed Abacha found favorable climate to come and fight in the open, for the first time he went to open court, for one reason or the other EFCC agreed with him that he owns 50% of the company and prosecuted the other recipients.

On December 20, 2016, EFCC filed fraud charges against Abubakar Aliyu, (Co owner of several companies that were recipient of the bank transfer from Etete) Mohammed Adoke (former Attorney General) and Dan Etete for their roles in the scandal.

According To Adoke, Mohammad Abacha was using EFCC

https://www.thecable.ng/interview-abacha-family-using-efcc-humiliate-malabu-says-adoke

Meanwhile Adoke claimed in the same interview that he didn't know Mohammed was involved, else he wouldn't have advised to return the block to Malabu. Because of Decree 53.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuyhLLvXgAASxw2.jpg

On December 28, 2016, after a final report by Italian prosecutors X the Italian authorities indicated their intention to file criminal charges against Shell and Eni and their officials, Dan Etete and Emeka Obi for their roles in the scandal.

January 26, 2017, EFCC secured an interim order against Shell and Eni that OPL 245 be returned to FG. The judgement was made by Justice Tsosho pending when investigationnans prosecution of suspects was completed.

March 2017, Justice Tsosho reversed his own judgment and canceled the forfeiture order on OPL 245.
Despite the scandal and controversy, Kachikwu announced that Shell and Eni would continue to operate OPL 245 after Shell's admission to paying Etete.

Now, how did we allow this wanton abuse of office that made the serving Head of state collude with his Minister of Petroleum resources to award one of Africa's richest oilfields to themselves? It is because of the archaic guiding legislation for the award of oil licenses.
The Petroleum act (1969) confers full discretionary powers in the Minister of Petroleum resources for the allocation of licenses and the transfer of rights to develop particular fields. This is why all Presidents want to be Minister of Petroleum.

Fact that we haven't updated this archaic law shows that we are not ready, as we haven't done anything to avoid this abuse of power the next time. The PIGB that @Mbuhari has failed to sign solves this problem, in part.

The factors that enabled Malabu scandal are still prevalent today, the vesting of discretionary powers on the President and Minister of Pet feeds the perception that allocation of oil fields is not necessarily based on merit but as a reward for political patronage.

Kachikwu had announced that we were going to have a bid round in 2018, the President has ignored it, meanwhile he recently renewed licenses for Seplat without any public bid.

https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/business-news/295873-buhari-approves-renewal-of-three-oil-licences-for-seplat-till-2038-official.html

The 8th Senate broke a 17-year jinx by passing the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) into law. In this bill, a new body, the NPRC will be in charge of licensing and check the President's powers. #OpenOilLicense

The President argued that the PIGB would whittle down his powers (which is the entire point) we need to remove the discretionary powers to award oil blocks from the Minister of Petroleum resources. We need a more transparent system.

For 2019, it's important to get the major candidates to commit to signing this bill. So we can avoid another Malabu.

Nathdoug:
Mean while
This is the person inec appointed to announce result
NIGERIA is finished

Nathdoug:
Mean while
This is the person inec appointed to announce result
NIGERIA is finished

elijahkayode:
Politics in Nigeria is in total turmoil, officials are being teargased in broad daylight, herdmens are still killing our siblings in the east, and president buhari despite his best has failed in his quest to reduce corruption and terrorism because he's yet to come up with a solution to Nigeria problems. Blame games don't cut it anymore, it's time to Reform the government.
Reforming The government would require them to serve voters, not corporate or special interests. I.e (president Trump might be controversial but he's delivering on his promises to his voters and the Americans love him for it)
Public Citizen will also work to empower ordinary citizens, reduce the influence of big corporations on government, open the government to public scrutiny, and hold public officials accountable for their misdeeds.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/reforming-government-first-requires-understanding-it/521004/
The objectives of the reform should be:
1. Establishing a Government System with More Effective Political Leadership
2. Federal Government should only focus on foreign policy
2. Restructuring of National Administrative Organs
3. A More Transparent Administration which would be a major win for the current government policy
4. Streamlining of the Government.
There will be no more regional killings (christians and Muslims will know their rights)
Donald Trump recently Discuss Christian Killings With President Buhari

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH6VwjX617g
Am sure you will agree with me that the Nigeria government is just like a bloated android device, trust me there are some Federal agencies out there that should be merged which will help save budget, and we will be able to secure our borders and harmonize our identity as a nation, no nation on planet earth survives without a proper citizen data which is a shame cause we don't have one in Nigeria.
Our government will be able to serve the Nigerian populance way better in this 21st century than it's current state afterall the US has a Congressional oversight program that review, monitor and supervise federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation and it has been in existence since 1816 and moreover president Trump has agreed to Reform United States government for the 21st century
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/management/government-reform/
Nigeria will be 68 be years in a couple of months and this will show that as a nation we are progressing and moving forward. President Buhari should think of this as a birthday gift to us.
Am trying to get this message across to everyone of us who believe in the brilliant future of this great country called Nigeria.
Give us "Hope" in this country, we all deserve it
sign the petition
https://www.change.org/p/muhammed-buhari-nigeria-next-president-must-agree-to-a-total-reform-of-the-government