The Nigerian Government has briefed a United Kingdom court how Mohammed Bello Adoke, former Attorney-General of the Federation, sold a property to the Central Bank of Nigeria at an overvalued price.
Government said the property located in the Federal Capital Territory was sold by Adoke through his ally to the CBN at N4billion after the property was purchased at N500million.
This was contained in a brief made by the Nigerian Government in its suit against JP Morgan in the High Court of Justice Business and Property Courts of England and Wales Admiralty and Commercial Court.
In the suit, the Nigerian Government highlighted the role played by Adoke as well as former Nigerian Petroleum Minister, Dan Etete, and ex-AGF, Bayo Ojo, in taking millions of dollars in bribes as part of a fraudulent scheme to monetise the corrupt award of the OPL 245 oil field to Malabu Oil & Gas in 1998.
The Nigerian Government claimed Adoke alongside his long-time ally, Aliyu Abubakar, using his shell company, A Group, and his subsidiary companies orchestrated the sale of the property to Nigeria’s apex bank in 2014.
Narrating its investigation to the court, the government also said 30 consecutive deposits of N1million each made on a single day and 35 deposits across 13 and 16 September 2013 amounting to N137.5million.
The Nigerian Government said, “The property in question was a development plot: Plot 3271, Cadastral Zone A06, Maitama District, Abuja. Plot 3271 was initially acquired by City Hopper Property & Investment Co Ltd (“City Hopper”) in 2005. As explained below, City Hopper appears to have been owned and controlled by Aliyu Abubakar. City Hopper then constructed two separate 7-bedroom duplex houses on the Plot 3271 (divided into Plots 3271A and 3271B) – but the transactions involving Adoke deal with Plot 3271, and therefore both dwellings, as a whole.
“On or around 14 September 2011, City Hopper sold Plot 3271 to A Group Properties Ltd for 700m Naira (c.$4.5million). City Hopper was paid $4,501,608 on 14 September 2011 by Imperial Union, another Abubakar Aliyu company. Those monies derived from the 2011 payments.
“At some stage shortly thereafter, Plot 3271 was passed from A Group Properties to Carlin International Ltd (“Carlin”). Carlin was also controlled by or otherwise connected with Abubakar Aliyu: this is apparent from the events that followed, and also because Carlin’s correspondence was signed by Bashir Adewuni, who worked for Abubakar Aliyu.”
The government added that on 5 October 2011, Carlin agreed to sell Plot 3271 to Adoke for N500million, a value lesser than the initial N700million Carlin had just acquired the property.
The Nigerian Government noted that the property was acquired by Adoke by a loan from Unity Bank, which was then serviced with cash proceeds that appear to be derived from OPL 245.
The Nigerian Government further testified that interest accrued monthly on the loan debt in Adoke’s Unity Bank account, at the eye-watering rate of around 7 to 8 million Naira per month with the total interest accrued by the time the loan was paid off was N146million.
“On 16 and 18 September 2013, Adoke’s account received four transfers from the Crawnford and Gagarimi BdCs on 16 and 18 September 2013 totaling 237,318,800 Naira, which cleared the remaining debt balance on the account and fully paid off the loan and interest. Unity Bank account statements for the Crawnford and Gagarimi BdCs show that, immediately prior to the transfers to Adoke, these accounts were each put in funds by numerous cash and cheque deposits.
“The final act is that, not long after Adoke paid off the Unity Bank loan in cash, Plot 3271 was sold – not by Adoke, but by Abubakar Aliyu – at a price many times higher than Adoke had paid.
“In 2013, Plot 3271 was subdivided into two plots, 3271A and 3271B, each containing one 7-bedroom duplex. City Hopper sold Plot 3271A to the Central Bank of Nigeria, for 2.3 billion Naira (c. $14million).
”It is not clear when or how title to the Plot reverted to City Hopper. Payment appears to have been made to Megatech (an Abubakar Aliyu company), which indicates that City Hopper, too, was owned and controlled by Aliyu. In November 2014 a company called Kimgalaxy Property Development, acting on behalf of City Hopper, negotiated the sale of Plot 3271B to the Central Bank of Nigeria, for 1.689 billion Naira (c. $10million).
“The result was that Plot3271 was sold for N4billion, having been purchased by Adoke for just 500m Naira, funded in cash out of the proceeds of OPL 245. It is not clear who received the profit of c.N3.5billion – or around $20million: but it seems unlikely, given his close involvement in the transaction, that Adoke did not see some of this profit.”
