The Nigerian government has charged a former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State, Mr Olasupo Shasore, who allegedly obtained $2 million from Process & Industrial Development Ltd, a British Virgin Island engineering firm, to frustrate a case against Nigeria, to court in London, United Kingdom.
P&ID Ltd had won a $9.6 billion arbitration against the Nigerian Government over a 2010 gas supply deal that went sour.
The court in London had ordered Nigeria to forfeit assets totalling $9.6 billion as compensation for the engineering firm if the country was unable to prove its case.
Documents obtained by SaharaReporters showed that following an investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Shasore was found to have been paid $2 million for his involvement in the first and second stages of the arbitration.
To achieve this target, he allegedly concealed his involvement in the case from his own firm, Ajumogobia & Okeke, but conducted the proceedings covertly through a separate firm, Twenty Marina, which had no background in litigation and was used to provide secretarial services.
Shasore, it was discovered, made payments of $100,000 each to Mrs Olufolakemi Adelore and Mr Ikechukwu Oguine, who were senior lawyers for the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (now Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited) at the time.
The payments were said to have been made to purchase the silence of Adelore and Oguine in relation to Shasore’s conduct of the arbitration.
A source privy to how the whole drama panned out, told SaharaReporters that Shasore’s conduct of the first two stages of the arbitration was totally unacceptable.
“Based on these payments, Mr Shasore was clearly dishonest and corruptible.
“Following the election of President Muhammadu Buhari into the office and the transfer of the conduct of the arbitration to the Ministry of Justice for the liability phase, Shasore has refused to meet with the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and complained that it was unacceptable and unconscionable to liaise with the AGF’s office on the matter as he had always liaised with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources since the commencement of the proceedings.
“He chose not to seek any disclosure, to accept all material aspects of Mr Quinn’s witness evidence and did not seek to cross-examine anyone at P&ID on the key issue in the case: whether P&ID could and would have performed the GSPA.
“In light of the indicators of fraud listed above, the most likely explanation for this is that Mr Shasore had entered into a dishonest arrangement with P&ID not to challenge its evidence or seek any disclosure with the inevitable result that Nigeria lost the case.”
In August 2019, the UK court declared that P&ID could take over assets from Nigeria totalling $9.6 billion for the country’s breach of the deal between them.
In a court document obtained by SaharaReporters, the Nigerian government on August 18, 2021 filed four counts of money laundering against the senior lawyer at the Federal High Court in Lagos.
“That you OLASUPO SHASORE, SAN on or about 18th day of November, 2014 in Lagos within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court induced Olufolakemi Adelore to commit an offence, to wit: accepting cash payment of the sum of USD 100,000 without going through financial institution which sum exceeded the amount authorized by Law and you thereby committed an offence contrary to section 18(c) of Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011 (as amended) and punishable under section 16(2)(b) of the same act,” part of the charges read.
“That you OLASUPO SHASORE, SAN on or about 18th day of November, 2014 in Lagos within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court in a transaction without going through a financial institution, made cash in a payment of the sum of to one Ikechukwu Oguine with sum exceeded the amount permitted by Law and you thereby committed an offence contrary to sections 1(a) and 16(1), (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011 (as amended) and punishable under section 16(2)(b) of the same act.”