Nigerian ex-oil min denied extradition

LAGOS, November 2, 2017 – A Nigerian judge dismissed an application by former oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke to face corruption charges in the African country on Wednesday.

Her lawyers had applied for her name to be added to a USD 1.4-million fraud case alongside two other defendants, including a former planning minister, because she had been named as an accomplice.

“The action of Diezani is to avoid justice in the United Kingdom. On the whole I found the application to be lacking in merit and accordingly dismissed,” Judge Rilwan Aikawa ruled.

Former Minister Alison-Madueke, who held office from 2011 to 2015, was charged with money-laundering in absentia in April 2017, while USD 110 million was seized from her bank accounts in February 2017. In August 2017, an additional USD 40 million in assets belonging to the former minister and four housing complexes linked to her were seized. A lawsuit to recover USD 1.7 billion from two Nigerian companies linked to her and accused of profiting from corruption is set to take place in November. She also faces investigations in the UK and USA.

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