Embattled former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has denied ownership of the $52. 8 million repatriated from the United States of America recently to Nigeria.
There had been reports linking Mrs. Alison-Madueke, who served Nigeria under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, with the fund.
The former minister, who has been hibernating in the UK since leaving office and who has a long battle with Nigeria’s anti-graft agencies, released a statement saying the fund does not belong to her. She said, instead that the money belongs to Kola Aliko, a Nigerian oil businessman.
Through her lawyer, Prof. Mike Ozekhome (SAN), Alison-Madueke said the looted money is from a vessel that was seized by the US government from Aluko. While the vessel was sold, the proceeds were repatriated to Nigeria, she said.
Pleading with ‘rumour mongers’ to stop destroying her reputation, she added: “We note with concern the recent deliberate attempt to link her with what has been described as a civil forfeiture of a yacht Galactica, the sale of which was said to have yielded $52.8m to the US government; which sum has since been repatriated to Nigeria.
“This is a clear example of the mischievous and cruel sport of tarnishing the image of the lady through a bouquet of consistent, persistent and unrelenting cocktail of falsehoods and misinformation.
“The purveyors of this line of misinformation term it ‘name-and-shame’. To sell the storyline, the architects ensured they attached Diezani’s name to a recovered yacht which is not in any way linked to her.
“They now falsely termed it ‘Diezani loot’. Nothing of the sort ever happened. She was never involved in the purchase, use and sale of the said yacht.
“The yacht Galactica, from information readily available in the public domain and in open sources, was purchased by Mr Kola Aluko who had used the vessel until he agreed to its forfeiture to the United States of America,” she said in the statement.
