The federal government has seized a private jet bought by
Dan Etete, a former minister of petroleum, who was allegedly involved in the
$1.1 billion Malabu oil deal.
Babatunde Johnson, whose firm- Johnson & Johnson
Solicitors was appointed by the Nigerian government in 2016 to recover assets
from the OPL245 deal, told Financial Uncovered that the the government had been
on the trail of the Bombardier 6000 jet, with tail number M-MYNA, since landed
in Montréal-Trudeau International Airport in Canada on May 29.
According to the news medium, the jet had just flown from
Dubai via Shannon Airport in the west of Ireland, and It is not known whether
any passengers were on board.
On Saturday, a court in the province of Quebec reportedly
granted a seizure order for the aircraft, and was served on Tibit Ltd, the
company which owns it.
Tibit Ltd, an anonymously owned company incorporated in the
British Virgin Islands, is said to have been given June 9 to oppose the court
order.
The jet, Johnson, said had been grounded in Dubai for the
past four years, where it had been closely monitored.
“Our investigators in Dubai then noticed that the jet,
having been grounded in Dubai for so long, suddenly did some test flights and
even went up to a cruising altitude for a short while. It seemed like they were
testing whether they could fly somewhere,” he was quoted to have said.
“The jet then took off from Al Maktoum International
Airport, Dubai, mid-morning on Friday. We did not know the destination at that
point.
“We now suspected that it was being flown to Canada for a
major service, pending a possible sale.
“We had just a few hours to get a legal team in place on the
ground there in Canada to file the injunction. It was 3am in Nigeria when I
made a statement to the judge via video link.”
In January, a federal capital territory (FCT) high court in
Gwagwalada issued a warrant of arrest against Etete following an ex-parte
application filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over
the deal.
In 2011, the federal government brokered a deal between
Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd, the original allotees of the enormously endowed but
controversial OPL 245, and Shell/ENI who wanted to buy the oil block from the
Nigerian company.
While Shell and ENI paid a signature bonus of $210 million
to the federal government, they paid $1.1 billion to buy 100 percent interest
in the oil block from Malabu.
The entire $1.3 billion was transferred to the account of
the federal government in London, UK, from where Malabu was paid its $1.1
billion.
Subsequently, it was alleged that bribes were paid to
officials of the government to facilitate the deal, which is considered
unfavourable to Nigeria as the value of the oil block is estimated to be worth
much more than what was paid for it.
Eni and Shell denied the bribery allegations. Eni also said
it has not made any profit from the deal because “Nigeria has declined to grant
a mining licence.
Etebe was minister of petroleum from 1995 to 1998.
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