Former Nigerian attorney general Mohammed Adoke was arrested by the International Criminal Police in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Monday over his involvement in one of the oil industry’s biggest corruption scandals; his lawyer confirmed the news with Reuters on Wednesday.
Adoke’s lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, said Adoke was arrested by Interpol on Monday as his client went to Dubai for a medical appointment. He said the arrest had been based on an expired warrant.
In April, Nigeria’s anti-graft agency secured arrest warrants for two former ministers including Adoke, former petroleum minister Dan Etete, and an Eni manager in connection to the $1.3 billion sale of a Nigerian offshore oilfield known as OPL 245 by Malabu Oil and Gas in 2011. Eni and Shell jointly acquired the field from Malabu, which was owned by Etete.
The deal led to legal cases across several countries, involving Nigerian government officials and senior executives from ENI and Royal Dutch Shell. Shell and Eni, and their executives have denied any wrongdoing. Etete has also denied wrongdoing.
In one of the cases, the prosecutors accused former and current executives of Eni and Shell of paying bribes to secure the licence and alleged that roughly $1.1bn of the total was siphoned to agents and middlemen.
Ozeknome said that the arrest warrant had, in fact, expired after being nullified by a court in October, because Adoke was not served with the charges before the warrant was issued. He added that Adoke has appeared in court in Nigeria in the past over the OPL 245 case and was exonerated.
“We have written to Dubai authorities, the EFCC (anti-graft agency), and the Nigerian authorities to free Adoke to allow him to go on with his medical treatment in Dubai,” Adoke’s lawyer said.
