A federal high court in Abuja has reported today 22nd of May that Diezani Alison -Madueke former minister of petroleum will be arraigned in court on October 3rd. The court has said that the arraignment will be on five counts bordering on conspiracy and illegal act of accepting and giving gratifications. There are so many politicians that have looted money from the Nigeria’s treasury and have not been brought to justice.
Diezani remains one of the untouchables and even if the EFCC has been making a parade of issuing an arrest warrant and employing the help of INTERPOL, Diezani might never be committed of her crimes in Nigeria. Ibrahim Magu chairman of the EFCC himself had revealed in 2018 why they had failed to arrest her and those that were protecting her.
The EFCC wants to make a show of how powerful they are and perhaps make an attempt to show Nigerians that Madueke can be brought to justice, but how can this be possible when Magu himself has revealed that the reason why she could not be brought to justice. But first, let us take a look at the life of this woman who surreptitiously and without any shred of conscience looted Nigeria’s money.
Diezani K. Alison-Madueke is a Nigerian politician and the first female President of OPEC. She was chosen at the 166th OPEC Ordinary gathering in Vienna on 27 November 2014. She turned into Nigeria’s minister of transportation on 26 July 2007.
She was moved to Mines and Steel Development in 2008, and in April 2010 was delegated Minister of Petroleum Resources. Diezani K. Agama was conceived in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. Her dad was Chief Frederick Abiye Agama. She studied Architecture in England and then at Howard University in the United States. She graduated from Howard with a four year college education on 8 December 1992. She returned to Nigeria and joined Shell Petroleum Development Corporation that same year. In 2002, she attended Cambridge Judge Business School for her MBA degree. In the wake of coming back to Nigeria, Diezani Alison-Madueke was selected as an Executive Director in Shell in 2006.
She was the first lady ever to be selected by Shell as an Executive Director in Nigeria.in 1999 she got married to Admiral Allison Madueke (retired), once Chief of Naval Staff who was at different occasions senator of Imo and Anambra State. She has two children, Chimezie Madueke and Ugonna Madueke In September 2011 Alison-Madueke was granted a honorary Doctorate certificate in Management Sciences by the Nigerian Defense Academy, Kaduna.
In September 2008 there was a fruitless endeavor to kidnap Alison-Madueke at her home in Abuja with her son Chimezie Madueke. A PBS NewsHour segment quoted American and British officials saying that previous Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke may by and by have organized a redirection of $6 billion (N1.2 trillion) from the Nigerian treasury.
She has been accused of being guilty of $20 billion missing from the Petroleum office. A previous Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi, made the remark again amid a PBS interview on 2 December 2015. Sanusi believes he was terminated from the Central Bank of Nigeria because he opened up to the world about charges that $2 billion was absent from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) under Alison-Madueke’s administration.
Alison Madueke says Sanusi made the charges to get back at her after she didn’t assist him with getting delegated as the leader of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and rejected his claim. She’s been blamed for granting multi-billion Naira contracts without plan of action to fair treatment and of neglectfully spending government funds. as well as squandering billions of naira inappropriately on personal jets.
In October 2009, the Senate of Nigeria arraigned Diezani Alison-Madueke and prescribed indictment for the exchange of 1.2 billion naira into the private record of a toll organization without due and in breach of concession understanding. She had been authoritatively charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of Nigeria for ‘money laundering’.
On the second of October 2015, Reuters reported that Alison-Madueke had been captured by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) in London, alongside four other individuals on suspicion of bribery and corruption offenses. Be that as it may, a representative for the police denied having any information of such an occurrence.
Her family and the Nigerian Government affirmed that she had been captured in London, despite the fact that the NCA declined to remark on the case. Also in Nigeria, her home in Asokoro, Abuja was attacked and closed by the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, a couple of hours after her supposed arrest in London. On 28 August 2017, a Nigerian administrative court seized 7.6 billion naira ($21 million) from ledgers connected to Alison-Madueke.
In Dec 5 2018 an article was published by daily post where Magu the chairman of EFCC revealed why The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had failed to arrest former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke.
Below Is an excerpt from the article
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has revealed those who were protecting former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke.
Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Magu disclosed that foreign law enforcement agencies were protecting Madueke from being arrested.
Speaking during a media chat in Abuja, Magu explained that if the former Minister was in Nigeria, she would have been arrested.
He said, “I need less than 72 hours to produce Diezani but how can I get her? She is being protected by other law enforcement agencies outside this country.
“This is our predicament. If she were here, I would have arrested her.
“The barrier is that other law enforcement agencies are involved in the matter. You know she is in the UK and we are making preparations to get her.
“We have already gone to court and this was part of the process of extradition; that is the court should declare that a warrant of arrest be issued against her and that we produce her within 72 hours.”
Magu pointed out that more than 80 percent of looted funds were hanging outside the country.
He said, “More than 80 per cent of the loot outside the country is still hanging. Ask them why it is so difficult to repatriate these funds when it has been established that this money came from Nigeria and you know that this person does not own this money.
“There is no justification. It is not a small amount of money. We have over $300m hanging in the Jersey Island, a UK foreign territory.”
On the 21st of December 2018 Vanguard reported that INTERPOL an arrest warrant had been issued
“We have filed the necessary processes and the Interpol has red-flagged Allison-Madueke. This means that the extradition process has been kick-started and the former minister may be arrested by the United Kingdom police or any police agency all over the world and repatriated to Nigeria,” Punch’s report had quoted a source as saying.
Magu had also revealed their plans on how they planned on going about Madueke’s arrest
‘’Let me also say that it is not true that Diezani has no case in Britain. All the EU countries are aware of her money laundering case. If we cannot get her within the deadline, we will go back to the court.”
He had also denied claims that the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office had not established any case against the former minister and was, therefore, not pressing any charges against her but expressed fears that the prolonged delay in charging her to court had already sent wrong signals to Nigerians at home and abroad. Allison-Madueke had left Nigeria for UK since 2015, just before the Buhari administration came on board.
Apparently it can be deduced that Diezani has some very powerful international bodies backing her. We can see that she is no ordinary woman and comes from an elite family. A woman like that will have strings pulled all over for her which Magu himself confirmed. So how does EFCC deal with a woman as powerful as this, how do they make her pay for her sins. Is it possible for her to pay for her crimes against the Nigerian people?