$1.1bn Malabu oil deal: Reps target funds overseas

From Kemi Yesufu, Abuja

Chairman, House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee investigating alleged corruption, malpractices and breach of due process in the award of the controversial OPL 245,  Razak Atunwa, yesterday disclosed that the committee is targeting the recovery  of funds linked to the deal suspected  to be stashed overseas.

This is as Daily Sun learnt that the  minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami has been written to appear before the committee on Thursday to explain why the Federal government has failed to take action on the Malabu Oil deal despite the request for Mutual Legal Assistance sent by the office of the Public Prosecutor and received by the Minister of Justice on October 13, 2015 from Italian investigators.

The committee commenced investigation last Wednesday, but adjourned till Tuesday for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Shell to present their submissions.

Daily Sun equally gathered that the majority shareholders of Malabu Oil in a letter to the Speaker of the House, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, dated October 10, 2016, expressing reservations over their not being invited to the investigative hearings by the committee.

The shareholders called on Dogara to ensure the EFCC and the AGF are involved in the investigation by the House.

However,  Atunwa in an interview, said based on information available to the committee, it had become expedient to take a closer look at persons and organisations of interest outside the country.

H said: “We’re also going to pursue the international angle that has currently come to the fore based on further revelations.

“This is because the money stacked in Switzerland is $111 million. There’s $85 million in the United Kingdom, there’s proceedings in US Supreme Court of New York where International Legal Consulting Limited, in an affidavit, deposed to by one Ednan Agaev against Malabu, claimed he is entitled to $65.5 million for services of transferring Malabu’s rights on OPL245 for the sum of $1.1 billion dollars”

The lawmaker explained that the decision of the committee to beam its searchlight beyond Nigeria was “to see how we can recover those ones and who are implicated in the deal from the documents of international prosecutors and how we can recover the money from them.”