SaharaReporters has learned that President
Muhammadu Buhari’s meeting on Monday
with the United States Attorney General,
Loretta Lynch, focused on a
strategy to prosecute Nigeria’s immediate past
Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-
Madueke, for her role in several billion dollar
corrupt deals in the oil industry. Mr. Buhari’s
meeting also touched on fighting terrorism as
well as strategies for identifying and purging
corrupt judges from the Nigerian judicial system.
Loretta Lynch in a meeting with Pres.
Muhammadu Buhari at the Blair House on
Monday
The Nigerian president went to the Monday
meeting with a delegation that included Governor
Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State.
High on the agenda was to discuss American
support for a vast investigation of racketeering
schemes spearheaded by Ms. Alison-Madueke
and several of her cohorts in the oil sector who
conspired to deprive the Nigerian treasury of
billions of dollars that went to private interests.
A source with authoritative information on the
meeting told SaharaReporters that the US
Justice Department provided President Buhari
with a dossier listing numerous participants in
the theft of several billions of dollars. US
authorities also pledged to offer further
documents on condition that Nigerian
prosecutors demonstrate a focused and
determined effort to pursue ethical and serious
prosecution.
Our source revealed that the documents
submitted and promised by the US disclose how
Mrs. Alison-Madueke and her cohorts used
several offshore accounts to move money
between Switzerland and Germany.
According to our source, the name of Kola Aluko
featured prominently in the discussion and
documents. Mr. Aluko, a player in the oil sector
who was picked by Ms. Alison-Madueke as a
front for some of her more egregious deals,
emerged in the last five years from relative
obscurity to become one of Africa’s richest
people.
Mr. Aluko, who fell out with the former
Petroleum Minister after he reportedly started
dating former superstar model Naomi Campbell,
has acquired a stunningly expensive yacht, a
retinue of Rolls Royce cars, other expensive cars
well as multi-million homes and apartments in
such locations as London, New York, and Dubai.
Our source explained that US law enforcement
agents, including the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), spent more than two years
on the investigation that uncovered a pattern of
obscene theft of billions of dollars of Nigeria’s oil
revenues. An FBI field officer in Abuja reportedly
played a key role in the investigation of Ms.
Alison-Madueke and her self-chosen
collaborators, including Mr. Aluko.
Our source disclosed that the US Justice
Department officials at the meeting indicated
that they would be reluctant to sustain their
collaboration with Nigerian authorities unless the
Buhari administration set some process in place
to identify and fire corrupt judges from the
Nigerian judiciary.
A confidante of Mr. Buhari told SaharaReporters
that, after leaving the meeting with the US
Attorney General, at the Blair House guest house
of Mr. Buhari, the Nigerian president vowed that
he would take decisive steps to rid Nigeria of
corrupt judges to ensure the success of his anti-
corruption agenda.
Last week, during his US visit, Mr. Buhari
publicly accused unnamed former ministers of
President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration of
stealing up to one million barrels of crude oil per
day from the Nigerian people. In official speeches
and media interviews, the Nigerian president also
restated his determination to go after corrupt
officials, regardless of their political affiliation.
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