Adoke: Obasanjo revoked OPL 245 after owners refused to cede 60% stake

Adoke

Mohammed Adoke, former attorney-general of the federation (AGF), has claimed that ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo revoked the oil prospecting lease (OPL) No 245 in July 2001 and awarded it to Shell because the block’s owners refused to cede a 60 percent stake.

Adoke spoke in Abuja on Tuesday during a reading of his new book, ‘OPL 245: The Inside Story of the $1.3bn Nigerian Oil Block’.

OPL 245 was awarded to Malabu in 1998 by the regime of the late Sani Abacha, but it became a subject of global corruption investigations, criminal prosecution and civil cases across the world after the Nigerian company sold its entire interest for $1.1 billion to Shell and Eni in 2011.

The oil companies also paid $210 million as signature bonus to the federation.

At the time, it was reported that Obasanjo revoked OPL 245’s license primarily due to irregularities in its original allocation and opaque shareholding linked to Dan Etete, the former petroleum minister who fronted the Malabu deal.

In a 2017 interview, Obasanjo denied knowledge of the deal. But documents seen by TheCable showed there were indeed agreements between Malabu and the government of Obasanjo.

Adoke was one of many officials who were caught in the saga after the late former President Muhammadu Buhari filed criminal charges against him.

However, the former attorney-general was discharged and acquitted in the related charges filed before two federal high courts in Abuja. Thecable