NAIROBI (Kaab TV) – A former Nigerian oil minister on trial in London has flatly denied ever soliciting or accepting bribes, insisting that lavish expenditures linked to her time in office were reimbursed by the state oil company.
Diezani Alison-Madueke, 65, told Southwark Crown Court in the UK, on Monday that she had “tried to push back on corruption” in a country she said had been plagued by it since the colonial era.
“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,” she told the court. “I always sought to act impartially.”
Prosecutors allege that several Nigerian businessmen bankrolled extensive spending on her behalf, including more than £2 million at luxury department store Harrods and £4.6 million on refurbishing properties in London and Buckinghamshire.
She is also alleged to have had access to a £2.8 million home in Marylebone and multi-million pound residences overlooking Regent’s Park.
Alison-Madueke told the court that the costs of services provided during her official duties were later repaid by the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
She said a service company was established in London to manage logistics because the NNPC’s financial structure was in disarray.
“They paid for all my hotels, chauffeurs… to allow me to perform the job that I did,” she said.
On the Buckinghamshire property, the former minister said her family stayed at the house over Christmas 2011 because her ex-husband required hospital treatment and could not travel back to Nigeria. She said she played no part in arranging the stay. A second visit, lasting more than two weeks, was used to write a book honouring the Nigerian president’s record on women’s empowerment. “I took it upon myself to put together that book to showcase what he did for women,” she said.
She told the court that a property overlooking Regent’s Park was used for discreet official meetings, while another property she is accused of using was undergoing extensive renovations and was unusable when she visited.
Regarding a flat in St John’s Wood, where she and her mother stayed with rent covered by Nigerian businessman Kolawole Aluko, Alison-Madueke said she had proposed the arrangement as a more cost-effective alternative to paying £2,000-a-night rates at hotels such as the Savoy and Dorchester.
She also told the court she was unaware at the time that one of her chauffeurs had delivered £100,000 in cash to her, saying the money had nothing to do with her.
The court heard how Alison-Madueke rose swiftly through the ranks at Shell, becoming the first senior female executive in its Nigerian operation — a role she said she initially resisted because of the company’s treatment of her father, a tribal leader who had once taken legal action against Shell over what she described as “apartheid practice in West Africa.”
She also expressed frustration with the company’s response to oil spills in the Niger Delta, the region her family came from, saying she did not believe enough had been done to address the damage caused.
On her personal security, she described Nigeria as a “very patriarchal society” where having a woman in a leadership position was “a major no no,” adding that she had faced serious kidnapping threats and that family members had been seized.
In 2015, Alison-Madueke became the first woman elected to lead the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
She denies five counts of accepting bribes and one charge of conspiracy to commit bribery. Also on trial is oil industry executive Olatimbo Ayinde, 54, who denies one count of bribery and one count of bribing a foreign public official.
Her brother, former archbishop Doye Agama, 69, denies conspiracy to commit bribery.