The Federal Government has seized a private jet allegedly purchased by Nigeria’s former Minister of Petroleum, Dan Etete, who is currently facing charges for his alleged involvement in the $1.1 billion Malabu oil deal.
The former minister had denied the allegation.
As reported by The Cable, Babatunde Johnson, whose firm, Johnson & Johnson Solicitors, was chosen by the Government of Nigerian to recover assets from the OPL 245 deal in 2016, revealed to Financial Uncovered that the government had been trailing Bombardier 6000 jet, with tail number M-MYNA, since the jet landed in Canada’s Montréal-Trudeau International Airport on May 29.
According to the website, it is unknown whether passengers were on board but the jet came in from Dubai through Shannon Airport in the west of Ireland.
A court in the province of Quebec reportedly approved a seizure order for the aircraft and the order was served on the company which owns it on Saturday.
The company that owns it is Tibit Ltd, a company that is anonymously owned and incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. Tibit Ltd have been asked to oppose the court order on June 9.
Johnson said the jet had been grounded in Dubai since four years ago and it has been under close monitoring since then.
Johnson said: “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.”
“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.”
A Federal Capital Territory (FCT) high court located in Gwagwalada issued a warrant of arrest against Etete after an ex-parte application was filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in respect of the deal in January.
It should be recalled that the Federal Government brokered a deal between Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd, the real allottees of the big but controversial OPL 245, and Shell/ENI who showed interest in buying the oil block from the Nigerian company in 2011.
Though Shell and ENI gave a signature incentive of $210 million to the Federal Government, the companies paid $1.1 billion to purchase 100 percent interest in the oil block from Malabu.
The total $1.3 billion was wired Federal Government’s account in London, UK and Malabu was paid its $1.1 billion from the account.
It was later alleged that bribes were given to top government officials to facilitate the deal, which is considered not favourable to Nigeria as the oil block value is calculated to be higher than what was paid for it.
Eni and Shell debunked the allegations of bribe. Also, Eni said it had not record any profit from the deal because “Nigeria has declined to grant a mining licence’.
Dan Etete was Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum between 1995 and 1998.
