Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has warned a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Bello Adoke, SAN, to cease further mention of his name in the controversial $1.1 billion Malabu Oil deal.
Obasanjo, who spoke to Premium Times from Addis Ababa, said he considered the controversial award of OPL 245 oil field licence as the “height of corruption,” and, as such, could not have participated in negotiations that led to it.
“I don’t support that kind of conduct,” Obasanjo said in his first reaction to the intercontinental oil scandal that has haunted three administrations for nearly a decade.
The rebuttal came a day after Adoke distributed excerpts of a petition he sent to the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, alleging victimisation and persecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Adoke told his successor to call the anti-graft agency to order because he was not the only official who acted on behalf of Nigeria in brokering the deal with international oil majors that included Shell and Eni.
He specifically mentioned Obasanjo’s name, alongside his two successors and their appointees.
However, Obasanjo, who clocked 80 earlier this month, admonished Adoke to concentrate on rendering accounts of his actions while in public service and stop dropping his name in the matter.
He said: “Adoke and others should not drag me into a matter I know nothing
about. If they have been asked to answer questions over decisions they took while in office, they should do that honourably. They should not bring Obasanjo into an Etete deal. I was not part of any such deal.”
Obasanjo said it was inappropriate for any government functionary to “appropriate to himself or herself what he or she is in charge of.”
“If I hold that view, I could not have approved a deal with Dan Etete. What Etete did is the height of corruption. He appropriated the asset to himself illegally, illegitimately and immorally,” Obasanjo said.
Premium Times had reported how Etete as petroleum minister in 1998, awarded the oil block to Malabu, a company which he partly owned.
The administration of Obasanjo granted approval for the re-award of OPL 245 block to Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd., but when he was reminded of this fact on Monday, the former president stood his ground, saying he could not recall assenting to such a deal.
“I can’t remember giving approval that the block be given back to Etete,” the ex-president said.
Obasanjo challenged anyone to produce proof that he took part in returning the oil field to Malabu, saying Ojo and Daukoru might be in better position to explain what actually transpired.
“We gave it back to Malabu? On what ground? Do you have any such evidence? Ask Bayo Ojo and Edmund Daukoru what really happened because the stand I took at the time was unassailable.
“If Daukoru has evidence that I approved that the block be given back to Malabu or Etete, let him produce it. If it is proven that I indeed approved the deal, I will be willing to apologise to Nigerians. But we have to get to the bottom of it all,” Obasanjo said.
