Full details of Diezani’s arraignment in UK court emerges, as EFCC reacts

Former Minister of Petroleum, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke has been arraigned in court in London on charges of receiving bribes in the form of cash, luxury goods, flights on private jets and the use of high-end properties in the United Kingdom in return for awarding oil contracts.

Mrs Diezani was Nigeria’s minister between 2010 and 2015, during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

This is also as anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), while welcoming the development, kicked against the charges preferred against her by the UK court, Monday, adding that it differed from the 13-count charge awaiting her in the country.

Appearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, Alison-Madueke spoke only to give her name, date of birth and address. She was not asked to formally enter a plea, although her lawyer Mark Bowen told the court she would plead not guilty.

She is the second high-profile Nigerian politician to face prosecution in Britain in recent years, following James Ibori, a former state governor who was convicted of fraud and money-laundering in 2012 and received a 13-year jail sentence.

Alison-Madueke was arrested in London in 2015, shortly after stepping down as minister, and was charged in August with six bribery offences. She has spent the past eight years on police bail, living in St John’s Wood, an expensive area of London.

The charges against her, read out in court, all related to events alleged to have taken place in London.

Prosecutor Andy Young said she was alleged to have accepted a wide range of advantages in cash and in kind from people who wanted to receive or continue to receive the award of oil contracts which he said were worth billions of dollars in total.

The advantages included a delivery of 100,000 pounds ($121,620) in cash, the payment of private school fees for her son, and the use and refurbishment of several luxurious properties in London and in the English countryside.

They also included the use of a Range Rover car, payment of bills for chauffeur-driven cars, furniture, and purchases from the upmarket London department store Harrods and from Vincenzo Caffarella, which sells Italian decorative arts and antiques.

District Judge Michael Snow granted Alison-Madueke bail but imposed terms including an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, an electronic tag to be worn at all times and a 70,000-pound surety to be paid before she could leave the court building.

Her next court appearance will be at Southwark Crown Court, which deals with serious criminal cases, on October 30.

It would be recalled that the EFCC said it had obtained an arrest warrant for Alison-Madueke and initiated extradition proceedings.

“She will soon have her day in our courts,” it said in a statement.

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service and National Crime Agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the EFCC statement and on how any extradition request would affect the criminal case in London.

Meanwhile, reacting to the Monday arraignment of Diezani in the UK, the EFCC, said it welcomed the development, even as it said that the ‘charges preferred against her at the London court, are diametrically different from the 13-count charges bordering on money laundering the EFCC has raised against her.’

In a statement by the agency’s acting spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, Monday, the EFCC said ‘although the charges preferred against her at the London court, are diametrically different from the 13-count charges bordering on money laundering the EFCC has raised against her, it is instructive to note that criminality is criminality, irrespective of jurisdictional differences. No crime can go unpunished.’

“The money laundering charges for which Madueke is answerable to the EFCC, cover jurisdictions in Dubai, United Kingdom, United States of America and Nigeria.

“To bring the former Minister to trial in Nigeria, an arrest warrant has been obtained and extradition proceedings have been initiated. The Commission is on course on her trial. She will soon have her day in our courts,” the anti-graft agency said.