Nigerian Oil Deal Resonates In U.S Presidential Race

The fallout of the deal is being linked with the ongoing US presidential campaign of former President Bill Clinton’s wife, New York Senator Hillary Clinton.

Dr. Kase Lawal, who is the Chief Executive Officer of one of the oil companies, CAMAC, a Houston-based international oil conglomerate, is a fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton.

However, the McClatchy Newspapers in the US is probing alleged shady dealings involving CAMAC’s subsidiary in Nigeria – Allied Energy – and two other oil companies; something it says raises questions on the sources of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign finances.

Clinton campaign spokesman, Jay Carson, said in an interview that CAMAC’s chairman is an upstanding member of his US community and deflected any suggestion that Lawal’s contribution to the campaign was problematic.

In the US, Kase Lawal’s company is much celebrated as the biggest black-owned business, while he himself is a known philanthropist.

Investigations reveal that the Nigerian oil company involved in the triangular oil deal is Cavendish Petroleum, owned by Alhaji Mai Deribe, which won the government license for the Obe oil field.

A Dublin-based publicly quoted oil resources company, Tuskar, was brought in to help develop the field, in a partnership between Cavendish, Tuskar and Allied Energy, owned by CAMAC.

However, due mainly to the failure of the deal, which lasted between 1999 and 2000, Tuskar went belly-up and into receivership, while Cavendish reported perceived fraudulent practices against its partners to the Nigeria Police.

The police filed charges, including forgery and stealing allegations against the partners and their firms in Nigeria, involving top officials including Lawal.

But after several legal twists in courts, the case was essentially left opened by the police and seemed to have gone dormant until recently when internet reports and the US newspapers linked a Clinton fundraiser – CAMAC’s CEO – to charges of fraudulent practices.

For instance, the case went through the high and appeal courts, prosecuted by ACP (now AIG) Nuhu Ribadu, before he was named to the EFCC chair.

But the police lost the case, until it went to the Supreme Court, on the issue of whether the police had prosecutorial powers of their own independent of the Attorney General’s. The Supreme Court, in 2006 ruled in favour of the police, in the now famous case, FGN vs. Osahan.

However, since that ruling, the police had simply left the case alone and at least three Police Inspectors-General had passed without the case being taken to its logical conclusion – to determine the culpability of the oil company officials accused by the police.

Still, in an indication of the Federal Government resolve to rest the case, which has remained unproven against the individuals and oil firms charged, one of those officers, which Cavendish and the police criminal complaints had sued on the fraudulent charges, has remained with the NNPC.

George Osahan, for whom the case was named against the police, as representing Allied and CAMAC – both owned by Kase Lawal in the three-way oil deal – has since been appointed to top NNPC positions by the government.

Osahan was named the Managing Director of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) and later moved to NAPIMS and is still a top executive in the NNPC.

While the allegations against the oil companies said the companies defrauded the government by illegally pumping 10 million barrels of oil from the block allocated to Cavendish, industry experts say the block did not pump up to one million barrels altogether during the entire life-span of the agreement.

Besides, the oil block which was alleged to have been stolen from Cavendish by the two other oil companies, is now managed and operated by another European oil firm, Tranfigura, based in Switzerland.

Cavendish owner, Alhaji Deribe, had sought the assistance of Lawal’s CAMAC, which was also then actively developing its own license to lift oil.

CAMAC approached US-based Conoco, its own partners, which determined that the field was not lucrative for a major oil company of its status.

In a previous interview with The Guardian, Lawal said CAMAC had tried 19 other major oil companies in the world, seeking a partnership for its oil block until Conoco agreed to its proposal.

According to investigations, it was at that point that Cavendish persisted that even though the oil block was marginal for a major oil company, it could still be profitable for some other oil company.

CAMAC then secured the partnership of Tuskar to drill the Obe oil field.

However, as the US newspaper reported last week, quoting CAMAC’s CEO, “even before production started… Cavendish began to demand bigger monthly payments from CAMAC and Tuskar and when they refused, a ‘blackmail started.'”

The US paper also reported that Kase Lawal said he suspects that some police officials were “unduly influenced” to bring up what is being perceived as sour grapes allegations.

The newspaper said that the lawyer to Cavendish’s owner, Mai Deribe, declined comment. So, too, Mr. Ribadu, who had prosecuted the cases to the Supreme Court on behalf of the Police.

When Tuskar and CAMAC fell out with Cavendish, the Nigerian oil firm refused to cooperate anymore with the operation of the Obe oil field, causing Tuskar’s entire business to fail.

A UK-based newspaper, Telegraph, reported in its March 14 edition in 2001 Alhaji Mai Deribe, as saying, “Cavendish is not aware that Tuskar Resources has any interest in the Obe field, despite repeated claims being asserted to this effect by Tuskar.”

But that same report quoted Gene Manson, then Tuskar managing director, saying, “Tuskar has an interest in the field. We know Cavendish knows that. We are going on to work out our differences.”