Alleged $2.5bn Fraud: AGF Requests Extradition Of Diezani Madueke From Uk
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, has made a request to the Crown Prosecution Services of the United Kingdom for the extradition of the former Minister of Petroleum, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke.
The Attorney General of the Federation, also submitted a warrant of arrest based on the orders of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that was followed by a written official request by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), to the office of the Minister of Justice in October this year.
It was gathered that in making the extradition request, the office of the AGF cited Section 2 (2) of Nigeria’s Extradition Act, CAP E25, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, and the London Scheme of Extradition within the Commonwealth otherwise known as “The Scheme,” a multilateral treaty which governs extradition between the United Kingdom and Nigeria.
Similarly, the EFCC had established a prima facie case against Allison-Madueke in a letter to the office of the AGF, after which a magistrate was directed to issue a warrant of arrest for which a certified true copy of the warrant of arrest was then attached to the extradition request to the UK government.
Information pieced together indicated the delay in the extradition of Allison-Madueke to Nigeria from the UK was as a result of an ongoing internal review of the request by the UK authorities.
According to a source in government; “It is the UK that will determine how fast Allison-Madueke will be returned to Nigeria.
The EFCC had on October 2, announced that it had commenced the process of extraditing Mrs Alison-Madueke from the United Kingdom to Nigeria over 13-count charges bordering on money laundering.
Diezani Allison-Madueke appeared before the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London over an alleged £100,000 bribe and was granted bail in the sum of £70,000 by the district judge, Michael Snow, who also imposed other terms on the former Petroleum Minister that included; an 11 pm to 6 am curfew, an electronic tag to be worn by her at all times and a £70,000 surety to be paid before she could leave the court building.
The next Court appearance of Allison-Madueke will be on October 30, 2023 at Southwark Crown Court, which deals with serious criminal cases.
The UK’s National Crime Agency in August this year, said it suspected Alison-Madueke accepted bribes in return for awarding multi-million-pound oil and gas contracts.
…With additional report from Punch newspaper
