Malabu Oil Deal: I Never Collected $200m Bribe – Jonathan

Former President, Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday dismissed reports that he received the sum of $200m as kick-back from the Malabu oil deal.
Jonathan made the denial while responding to a report by an American news website, Buzzfeed, which claimed he got the said amount from the sale of the controversial OPL 245 oil block.
In a statement by his media aide, Ikechukwu Eze, the former President maintained that the Malabu oil deal was struck before his administration.
Noting that the report can only be true if he had a time machine, the former President said the, “fake news” was the handiwork of those determined to truncate his rising international profile.
The statement reads, “The allegations that former President Goodluck Jonathan received $200 million as proceeds from the Malabu Oil deal which were published on a gossip news site, Buzzfeed, and republished by a few other newspapers, is false in its entirety, and is one more in the series of fake news sponsored by those threatened by Dr. Jonathan’s continuously rising profile in the international community.
“Common sense should have shown the purveyors of this slander that the Malabu oil deal far predated the Jonathan regime and it would only make sense for him to be bribed if he had a time machine to go back in time to when the deal was struck.
“The report relied on hearsay evidence from a man of questionable character who provided no substance to back up his false claim.
“The man quoted by the report said he ‘assumed’ that Dr. Jonathan would be bribed. Since when has the assumption of a crook been enough to smear the reputation of a patriot and international statesman like Dr. Goodluck Jonathan?
In the documents, Italian prosecutors quoted Ednan Agaev, a Russian middleman who helped negotiate the transfer of the oil block to Shell and Eni, as saying that Dan Etete, the former Petroleum Minister at the heart of the oil scandal, said he intended to dole out as much as $400 million in bribes if the deal went through.
If Mr. Etete actually paid out such an amount in bribes to Nigerian officials, “Agaev stated that he would think President Goodluck Jonathan got at least $200 million of this money,” BuzzFeed quoted an excerpt of FBI submissions to Italian authorities as saying.
The revelations were made when the FBI interviewed Mr. Agaev, whom prosecutors also said met with Mr. Jonathan on more than one occasion in Nigeria during the OPL 245 negotiations.
Mr. Agaev, who was Mr. Etete’s representative in the negotiation, said the convicted former petroleum minister told him of the $400 million bribe to Nigerian politicians when he approached him for his payment.
The Russian also repeated the claim in a follow-up interview with Italian prosecutors, led by Fabio De Pasquale in Milan.
“I said that if it’s true, that he paid, he had to pay 400 million, I assume that at least 200 went to Goodluck (Jonathan).”
“I heard from Chief (Etete), he claims that he had to pay 400 million, so, if this is true, if he paid 400 million, then most probably the President, as the biggest boss, took at least the half of it,” BuzzFeed wrote, quoting documents prepared by Italian prosecutors.
The former President also dismissed claim by the report that he tutored the children of former Petroleum Minister, Dan Etete.
Describing the report as “clearly ridiculous,” Jonathan maintained that he has never met Etete’s children.
He said,”The report also wrongly claimed that “Jonathan and Etete had known each other for years, according to Shell staff, when Jonathan served as a tutor to Etete’s children while he was a minister”. This claim is clearly ridiculous and nothing can be further from the truth.
“In the first place, the former President couldn’t have been a ‘tutor’ to Etete’s children without first establishing contact with the family.
“This is because Jonathan met Etete who served as the Petroleum Minister in Gen. Abacha’s military regime for the first time under the succeeding civilian administration, when he was already the deputy Governor of Bayelsa State. Even then, the fact remains that ex-President Jonathan has never met any of Etete’s children.
“Besides, Jonathan couldn’t have been anybody’s private tutor during that period, because he was already in the directorate cadre in Oil.”