Malabu Oil: Court acquits Abubakar, others on money laundering charges

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri

ABUJA – The Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday discharged and acquitted oil mogul Aliyu Abubakar, who was accused of complicity in the criminal diversion of funds linked to the Malabu Oil & Gas Limited deal.

The court, in a judgment delivered by Justice Inyang Ekwo, also discharged seven other defendants in the charge filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The anti-graft agency had alleged in 2016 that Malabu Oil, alongside a former Minister of Petroleum under the military regime of General Sani Abacha, Chief Dauzia Etete (Dan Etete), and Seidougha Munamuna and Amaran Joseph, both directors of the company who are said to be on the run, “took control of the sum of $401,540,000 paid from the federal government of Nigeria Account No: 0041451493 IBAN 30CHAS609242411492 with JP Morgan Chase Bank in London into the account 2018288005 of Malabu Oil & Gas Limited domiciled with First Bank of Nigeria Limited.”

According to the EFCC, Malabu Oil negotiated and signed the “block 245 resolution agreement with the federal government of Nigeria with Shell Nigeria Ultra Deep Limited, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Nigeria Agip Exploration Limited, and Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited, whereby taxes, accruals and royalties due to the federal government of Nigeria were unlawfully waived.”

OPL 245 is regarded as one of the richest oil blocks in Africa.

The EFCC told the court that the defendants were involved in a web of fraud totalling about $875,740,000.

Aside from Abubakar, the other defendants in the charge marked FHC/ABJ/CR/268/2016 were six companies: A Group Construction Company Limited; Rocky Top Resources Limited; Megatech Engineering Limited; Novel Properties and Development Company Limited; Imperial Union Limited; and Carlin International Nigeria Limited.

Specifically, the EFCC alleged that Abubakar used his companies to receive money that was proceeds of the Malabu Oil deal.

However, the defendants pleaded not guilty to the allegation.

Delivering his judgment on Thursday, Justice Ekwo held that the prosecution failed to prove its case against the defendants.

He held that the EFCC erred when it proceeded to try the defendants despite a directive issued in 2018 by the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), which stopped it from going ahead with the case because of insufficient evidence to support the allegation.

The court held that the totality of the evidence adduced before it failed to link the defendants to the commission of any crime.

Consequently, it discharged and acquitted them.

The court also dismissed another charge, marked FHC/ABJ/CR/39/2017, in which Abubakar was the sole defendant, following an earlier ruling that freed a former AGF, Mohammed Adoke, SAN, who was initially accused of complicity in the alleged fraud.

The court had on April 19, 2024, acquitted the erstwhile AGF on the premise that the EFCC failed to establish a prima facie case against him.

In upholding a no-case submission that the former AGF filed after the prosecution called its last witness, Justice Ekwo held that the totality of the evidence adduced before the court was not sufficient to sustain the charge.

He held that the proof of evidence was not strong enough for any court to rely on it either to convict the defendant or to compel him to open his defence to the charge.

The EFCC had alleged that Adoke, SAN, sometime in August 2013, in Abuja, accepted a cash payment of the dollar equivalent of N300 million from Abubakar, and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 16(2)(b) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011 (as amended).

Abubakar was also accused of accepting a cash payment of $4 million from Faman Holdings Limited, through one Abdulhakeem Uthman Mustapha, in September 2013. The prosecution told the court that Adoke made structured cash payments in tranches into his Unity Bank Plc Account No. 0020153263.

The prosecution maintained that the former AGF made cash payments that exceeded the approved threshold outside a financial institution.

The allegation was denied by the defendants, who have now been discharged and acquitted by the court.

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