Diezani Alison-Madueke, a former petroleum minister accused of benefitting form proceeds of corruption in the UK in exchange for granting government contracts has denied taking bribes.
Diezani, 65, told Southwark Crown Court on Monday that she had “tried to push back on corruption” in a country plagued by it since the days it was a British colony, BBC reports.
Several Nigerian businessmen are alleged to have bankrolled huge spending sprees, including more than £2m at luxury store Harrods and £4.6m on refurbishing homes in London and Buckinghamshire.
However, Diezani Alison-Madueke said that the cost of services laid on for her while on official duties were later repaid.
“I can state categorically that at no point did I ask for, take or receive a bribe of any sort from these persons and did not abuse my office,” Alison-Madueke told the court.
“I always sought to act impartially.”
NNPC
She said money spent on her behalf was reimbursed by the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC.
She added that that a service company was set up in London to handle the logistics because the financial structure of the NNPC was in a mess.
“They paid for all my hotels, chauffeurs… to allow me to perform the job that I did,” she said.
In court on Monday, the former minister said she was not aware at the time that one of her chauffeurs had delivered £100,000 in cash to her, adding that the money had had nothing to do with her.
The court heard how Alison-Madueke had risen quickly through the ranks at Shell, becoming the first senior female executive in its Nigerian operation.
This was despite her not wanting to work for the multinational company because of its treatment of her father, she said, who had once also been a senior employee.
At Shell
“I found the job uncomfortable to put in mildly, ” she said, explaining that her father, who was a tribal leader, had once unsuccessfully taken legal action against Shell “for apartheid practice in West Africa.”
She told the court how when she worked at Shell, the company was having big problems dealing with oil spills in the Niger delta area where her family was from. She didn’t believe the company had done enough “to make good on the devastation that they had caused”.
Asked about concerns with her own security, she said Nigeria was a “very patriarchal society” so to have a “woman sitting at the helm was a major no no.”
She added that she was “under dire threats of kidnap” and that members of her family had been seized.
Alison-Madueke denies five counts of accepting bribes and a charge of conspiracy to commit bribery.
Also on trial, oil industry executive Olatimbo Ayinde, 54, denies one count of bribery and another count of bribing a foreign public official.
Meanwhile, Alison-Madueke’s brother, former archbishop Doye Agama, 69, denies conspiracy to commit bribery.
The trial continues.
