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The jury in the trial of Diezani Alison-Madueke began their deliberations after nearly four months at London’s Southwark Crown Court.
Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s minister for petroleum resources between 2010 and 2015 under then-President Goodluck Jonathan, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of accepting bribes and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery.
Prosecutors allege Alison-Madueke, 65, led a “life of luxury” in London, being given high-end properties to stay in and taken on luxury shopping sprees by industry figures interested in lucrative oil and gas contracts.
But lawyers for the former minister, who was also briefly president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, argued Alison-Madueke was merely a “rubber stamp” for official recommendations.
“At no time did I ask, take, or seek a bribe or bribes of any sort,” Alison-Madueke told the jury when she gave evidence last month.
Alison-Madueke stood trial alongside oil industry executive Olatimbo Ayinde, 54, who is charged with one count of bribery relating to Alison-Madueke and a separate count of bribery of a foreign public official.
Alison-Madueke’s brother, 69-year-old Doye Agama, is charged with conspiracy to commit bribery relating to Agama’s church. They both deny the charges.
After a trial which began in late January, the jury was sent out just before 12:30 p.m. on Monday to consider their verdicts on the eight charges the three defendants face.
The family of former Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, on Monday, raised the alarm after the Department of State Services, DSS, officials allegedly took him into custody following a court sitting at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
According to the family, the action was in apparent breach of existing court orders directing that he remain in the custody of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission ICPC.
El-Rufai’s second wife, Hasiat, who addressed journalists outside the DSS facility, said the family was traumatized by the development and lived daily under the shadow of threats and surveillance.
“We now live in constant fear. Every day we get a threat — DSS is coming to raid your house, ICPC is coming to raid your house, police are coming to raid your house. You are being followed. Our phones are tapped,” she said.
She narrated that earlier in the day, el-Rufai had appeared before Justice Joyce AbdulMalik of the Federal High Court, who granted bail and stood the matter down until 1pm.
During the break, she said, he was briefly taken to the DSS facility — a move he resisted, insisting that two subsisting court orders from a Kaduna court directed that he be remanded with the ICPC.
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“He said to them, I am not going to step down because there are two court orders that the Kaduna court gave that I should be remanded in ICPC. Why are you bringing me here? He said, I am not a furniture to be moved,” she recounted.
She said he was subsequently returned to the ICPC, but that after the afternoon session — during which the prosecution sought an adjournment and the judge fixed a resumption for the following day — he was again brought to the DSS instead of being returned to ICPC custody.
As of the time she spoke, she said el-Rufai had refused to step out of the vehicle.
“He told them that if you want to take me inside DSS custody, you will have to physically force me into doing this, because you had an agreement.
“When Justice AbdulMalik said I should go to DSS in the first instance, we told her that there are subsisting orders. And she said, let DSS and ICPC go and decide who will keep him — and you people decided they are keeping him with ICPC.
“What has changed?” she queried.
Hasiat also disclosed that el-Rufai, who has been in custody for 91 days, had been denied access to his personal physicians in violation of a court order by Justice Aikawa of the Kaduna State High Court granting him unfettered access to his lawyers and doctors.
She explained that the ICPC’s own in-house doctor had recommended that el-Rufai run medical tests, after which it was agreed that the doctors would return to discuss the results with him.
That agreement, she said, was subsequently disregarded.
“When you see a doctor and you run tests, you are expected to see the doctor back so that he explains what the problem is. He was denied access to the doctor because in their own explanation, they said Malam was not aware that the doctor was coming. I asked Malam — Malam said nobody told him,” she said.
The family’s demands were clear: el-Rufai’s immediate return to ICPC custody in line with the existing court orders, restoration of his access to personal physicians, and an end to what they described as psychological torment of both the former governor and his family.
El-Rufai’s son and member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Bello el-Rufai, was unequivocal that the entire affair was politically motivated, questioning the stringency of bail conditions that he said were deliberately designed to be impossible to meet.
