The immediate past Minister of
Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, was on Friday arrested in London,
PREMIUM TIMES can exclusively and authoritatively report.
The former minister, who was
one of the most powerful officials of the President Goodluck Jonathan
administration, was arrested Friday morning by the UK National Crimes Agency,
alongside four other people.
The identities of the four
other people arrested along with her could not be immediately ascertained.
PREMIUM TIMES learnt she was
arrested for offences related to bribery, corruption and money laundering.
Two top British officials in
London confirmed the development to this newspaper. They requested not to be
named because they had no permission to speak on the issue.
When contacted, the British
High Commission in Nigeria confirmed that some arrests were made Friday but
declined to disclose the identities of those involved.
Joseph Abuku, Press and Public
Affairs Officer, said, “This morning, five people between the ages of 21 and 60
were arrested on suspicion of bribery and corruption offences. The crimes are
being investigated by the National Crimes Agency.
“The National Crime Agency
does not confirm identity at arrest nor provide information that could be used
to corroborate the identity of an arrested individual.”
It is not clear whether the
former minister was arrested based on request from the Nigerian government.
President Muhammadu Buhari had
on September 27 hinted that those who misappropriated billions of naira
belonging to Nigeria’s state oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation would soon be prosecuted.
Mr. Buhari said at a meeting
with President Xi Jinping of China in New York that his administration was
determined to fully sanitize Nigeria’s oil industry and make it totally free of
corruption and shady deals.
The President did not,
however, say how soon the prosecutions would start or if indeed investigations
had been concluded and whether culpable individuals had been identified.
The NNPC under the immediate
past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan was involved in several
shady deals, many of which have been cancelled by the present government.
However, Mrs. Alison-Madueke,
accused of several corrupt dealings, has stayed away from Nigeria since Mr.
Buhari was sworn-in as president.
A controversial minister
Mrs. Alison-Madueke was first
appointed into the federal cabinet in 2007.
A former director at Shell
Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, she was appointed Minister of
Transport by late President Umaru Yar’adua. In December 2008, she was
redeployed to the mines and steel development ministry.
After former Vice President
Goodluck Jonathan became acting president, Mrs. Alison-Madueke was appointed
Nigeria’s first female petroleum minister in February 2010, a position she held
till May 29, 2015 when Mr. Jonathan left office.
Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s tenure
as petroleum minister turned out one of Nigeria’s most controversial, amid
unending allegations of corruption.
Under her watch, dubious oil
marketers stole trillions of naira of oil subsidy money. She retained her
position after the House of Representative investigated the scandal and indicted
the minister.
Probes by independent audit
firms, including the KPMG and Pricewaterahousecoopers, confirmed billions of
dollars of oil money were missing, the most notable being $20 billion in 2014.
Mrs. Alison-Madueke also
supervised an awfully corrupt NNPC, which several shady deals had been exposed
by PREMIUM TIMES several investigations and confirmed by government and
independent auditors.
Long before her stint in the
oil and gas sector, Mrs. Alison-Madueke was investigated by the Nigerian Senate
on allegation she paid N30.9 billion to contractors while she held office as
transportation minister.
In 2009, the Senate also
indicted Mrs. Alison-Madueke and recommended her for prosecution for allegedly
transferring N1.2 billion into a private account of a toll company without due
process.
Regardless of the mounting
criticisms against her stewardship, Mrs. Alison-Maduke got elected in November
2014 as the first female president of oil cartel the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries.
The former minister
consistently denied any wrongdoing.
In June, after leaving office,
she rejected all allegations of embezzlement, saying she never stole from
Nigeria.
Reference: premiumtimesng
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