The onslaught on alleged thieves of Nigeria’s oil monies has caught up with an associate of Nigeria’s former petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke.
Diezani was arrested on Friday in London by the UK National Crime Agency.
As EFCC operatives also stormed her home in Abuja, they also raided the home of Jide Omokore, owner of SPOG and Atlantic Energy.
Omokore is accused of involvement in multi-billion dollar oil deals, including kerosene scam that rocked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Omokore’s no 9 Turnbull Street home in Ikoyi as well as his office on Glover Street, also in Ikoyi were under lockdown on Friday by EFCC officials, The News reports.
Omokore’s wife reportedly locked herself inside one of the rooms at Turnbull, hiding from the operatives.
Nigeria’s former governor of Central Bank, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, had named Omokore’s companies among others that connived with Diezani in ripping Nigeria off some $20 billion.
The disclosure formed part of the basis for his sack by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013.
Sanusi’s allegations were confirmed by the PWC auditors when they looked into NNPC books and unearthed a 2011 Strategic Partnership Agreements, involving Omokore’s Atlantic Energy and kola Aluko’s Seven Energy.
The News recalls that In 2011, as part of the efforts to promote local content, Shell sold its shares in 5 oil fields where NNPC was the majority shareholder.
Shell had been the operator of these oil wells but NNPC awarded the operator rights to its subsidiary NPDC.
NPDC then signed an agreement worth almost $7bn with Seven Energy (Kola Aluko) (3 fields) and Atlantic Energy (Jide Omokore) (2 fields) for them to operate the fields.
Atlantic was registered as a company only a day before it signed the agreement.
But the companies, without knowledge of how to operate the oil fields, sub-contracted the work to other companies.
Seven Energy’s contract entitled it to 10% of the profits from the 3 fields while Atlantic was entitled to 30% of profits in its 2 fields.
It is expected that the EFCC will carry out more raids on other persons believed to have benefited from the oil sleaze currently under investigation by President Muhammadu Buhari.
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