Nigeria seeks extradition of former oil minister

Nigeria is seeking the extradition of a former oil minister accused of corruption in four countries including Britain.

Diezani Alison-Madueke, 58, who served in the government of former president Goodluck Jonathan between 2010 through 2015, is believed to be living in London where she is being investigated by British authorities for bribery and money laundering.

Ms Alison-Madueke, who is thought to be living with her mother in a property in the exclusive St John’s Wood district, was arrested by the National Crime Agency in 2015. She is on bail and her passport is revoked while the authorities conduct their investigation.

She has been linked to three multimillion-pound properties in London, one of which is at the centre of a civil lawsuit by the US Department of Justice.

The US authorities believe the property was given to her as a gift in exchange for an oil contract.

In Nigeria she is being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over allegations of money laundering up to $115 million (Dh535m).

Ms Alison-Madueke was also named alongside Mr Jonathan in an Italian investigation into a $1.3 billion deal involving oil companies Shell and Eni in which they were accused of receiving kickbacks. But the two were not charged.

The Cambridge-educated politician, who was the first female president of Opec, has always denied claims of wrongdoing. The international arrest warrant news comes as Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari begins his campaign for re-election.

Mr Buhari was elected in 2015 promising to recover some of the $230bn that has left Nigeria as a result of corruption since 2004. An estimated $37bn of stolen Nigerian money is believed to be in London.

The country’s anti-corruption leader Ibrahim Magu said it wanted to extradite Ms Alison-Madueke because “no prosecution” was progressing in Britain.

Matthew Page, associate fellow at Chatham House, said it was unclear why Nigeria was pushing for her extradition when it was unlikely she would be prosecuted successfully in the country given the state of the judicial system.

Mr Page said the most likely explanation for the request was “pre-election primping” of the Buhari administration’s anti-corruption credentials.

Mr Buhari’s main opposition is the People’s Democratic Party, the governing party in which Ms Alison-Adueke served as oil minister.

“Diezani is loathed in Nigeria,” Mr Page said. “To many people she was seen as off the spectrum corrupt in terms of the quantity and the brazenness with which she stole from the state.”