In 1615, the Jacobean statesman Francis Bacon wrote that, “if we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us,” ironically, before he was impeached as Lord Chancellor of England for corruption.
This week, we look at the judgement in a longstanding corruption case in England, the resolution of a state versus state case at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, in Hamburg, with significant consequences for crew rights, and at some of the murderous injustices meted out by the bloody fighting in and around the Persian Gulf.
Diezani Alison-Madueke was the Nigerian petroleum minister from 2010 to 2015 under President Goodluck Jonathan, and she became the first female President of OPEC. In February, we reported she was on trial in London for corruption in London, facing five counts of accepting a bribe and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery at Southwark Crown Court, another first for an OPEC president.
Alongside her, Nigerian businesswoman Olatimbo Ayinde was also accused of bribery by the British authorities. Ms Ayinde faced two bribery counts, including an allegation that she bribed Alison-Madueke, and the charge that she also bribed Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu in August 2015, when he was Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Mr Kachikwu later became the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources but was not charged in the UK.
In March, Nigeria’s Attorney General sent a letter saying Ms Ayinde was actually a whistleblower, who had reported the malfeasance to the Nigerian authorities – long after she had been charged in England and, strangely, after the case against her had begun.
A third defendant, Ms Alison-Madueke’s own brother, Doye Agama, a bishop in a Pentecostal church in Manchester, faced one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. His defence lawyer said the charge against him arose after a big donation to his church from a Christian philanthropist who happened to have interests in the Nigerian oil and gas sector.
Notably, none of the other six people alleged to have given the Nigerian minister the bribes was charged, however – only Ms Ayinde.
Every corruption case requires a bribe giver and a bribe taker – and in the case of the ongoing Glencore oil trading corruption cases, only the alleged givers were prosecuted, whilst in the Alison-Madueke case, only the alleged receivers were charged, aside from Ms Ayinde.
Glencore’s former head of oil Alex Beard and five other ex-employees of the Swiss commodity trader will stand trial in London in October next year on their bribery charges, as per the Serious Fraud Office website. The six ex-Glencore employees have been charged with making corrupt payments relating to Glencore's operations in Nigeria, Cameroon or Ivory Coast, but no African official has been charged in relation to the cases, and Cameroon and Ivory Coast seem to show no serious and sustained interest in examining who was alleged to have received the payments from the oil traders or where the money went.
This is despite the fact that Glencore admitted it paid US$29 million through agents and employees to officials of state-owned crude oil firms in Nigeria, Cameroon and Ivory Coast between 2011 and 2016. As we reported in 2022, the company was fined £182.9 million (US$242 million today) by Judge Peter Fraser at Southwark Crown Court, who also approved £93.5 million (US$124 million) to be confiscated from Glencore.
Readers will note that the Glencore cases also involve bribes in Nigeria at the same time Ms Alison-Madueke was the oil minister. Anthony Stimler, a Glencore trader who was convicted of bribery in 2021, had named her as the recipient of certain bribes he paid, but the British case was framed more narrowly on the gifts and perks she was purported to have received in the UK.
The jury in Southwark heard claims that Ms Alison-Madueke had been taken on all expenses paid shopping trips to Harrods department store by oil industry figures seeking her approval for contracts, that bundles of cash had been delivered to her home, and that she had been given free flights on private jets by Nigerian oil industry players craving her favour.
There were allegations that she had been given gifts, including a Chanel handbag, a designer rug and two exercise machines, gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars, but not exactly millions and hard to tie to specific decisions she made.
She said that all her expenses had been properly reimbursed and that Nigeria had a “gift giving culture,” which explained the generosity of oil industry figures towards her. She alleged that she had maintained receipts for the expenses, but that these had mysteriously disappeared in a raid in her house in Lagos in 2015, a raid in which the British criminal investigators had not participated.
She said that evidence from the Nigerian Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) could not be trusted because it was directed by her political enemies.
Ms Alison-Madueke maintained that when she had been in government, she had sought to stamp out impropriety and graft. She said that because she had launched an anti-corruption drive, she herself had become a target for false allegations.
The Financial Times reported how the former minister told jurors in Southwark that she had tried to disrupt what she described as powerful “cabals” who had held the industry “hostage”, adding that she sought to break their stranglehold on the industry by encouraging smaller, indigenous Nigerian operators. She said she was a victim of sexism and vested interests.
“Because of the various things I tried to put in place, I became a direct target,” Ms Alison-Madueke swore under oath. She said there was no criminal intent in her actions.
The jury accepted her defence. All three accused were found not guilty on all charges by the jury in London last week.
When she emerged from the court room after the acquittal, Ms Alison-Madueke thanked God.
“It has been a hard journey, but I tell you this, God will always do as he will,” she said. “God will be God and God is not a man that he should lie; when he promises you something, he will see it through.”
Punch Nigeria journalist Sonala Olumhense has highlighted that whilst the acquittal in England is welcome for her, there are a number of other challenges the former minister may struggle to overcome, even with the support of divine providence:
First: the US civil forfeiture proceedings in the US in which the Department of Justice in 2023 announced the recovery of US$53.1 million in cash plus a promissory note with a US$16 million principal value, constituting the net liquidated value of forfeited assets, including luxury real estate in California and New York and the Galactica Star superyacht.
Second: in Nigeria, where the EFCC secured forfeiture from her of more than 80 properties, worth roughly US$80 million, alongside US$153 million in cash. Ms Alison-Diezani is challenging those forfeitures, arguing she was never properly served notice.
Third: allegations relating to Nigeria’s Crude Oil Swap Programme, which she superintended on her watch as minister from 2010 to 2015. It is estimated that between 2010 and 2014, NNPC channelled over 352 million barrels of oil into the deals worth US$35 billion, while shutting out relevant government agencies like the Ministry of Finance, the Department of Petroleum Resources, the Accountant-General, and the Central Bank.
In the greater scheme of the allegations against Ms Alison-Madueke, her acquittal in the UK is a victory, but not a major one, for her. Both the Crown Prosecution Service and the National Crime Agency said that they respected the decision of the jury.
The rule of law requires that those charged are able to defend themselves in court. An accused person can only be convicted if the prosecution case goes “beyond reasonable doubt,” which is the standard of proof required in criminal cases in England and Wales.
However, allowing eleven years to elapse between the time when the alleged offenses occurred and the date of the trial, where the accused were committed, is not justice. Justice should be delivered faster for it to have a deterrent effect, and to enable the innocent, as Ms Alison-Madueke was in this case, was be acquitted.
In part two later this week, we will look at another long-standing case, the events of which we have covered before.