Former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke, has accused ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and other key actors of orchestrating a coordinated campaign to scandalise the controversial OPL 245 oil block transaction, driven by personal and political motives.
Adoke made the explosive revelations in his newly published book titled “OPL 245: The Inside Story of the $1.3bn Nigerian Oil Block,” which is set to be publicly presented on Thursday, July 11, in Abuja.
The book, published by The Conrad Press Ltd in the United Kingdom, is a detailed account of Adoke’s experience during the legal and political storm that followed the 2011 oil deal involving Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd, Shell, and Eni.
The controversial transaction, which saw Malabu transfer its interest in Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 245 to Shell and Eni for $1.1 billion—along with a $210 million signature bonus to Nigeria—became the subject of high-profile global corruption investigations.
Although multiple courts in Italy, the UK, and Nigeria ultimately found no evidence of corruption, Adoke was arrested, charged, and later discharged and acquitted of all wrongdoing.
‘In the book, Adoke alleges that Buhari scandalised the deal not in the national interest but because of a personal vendetta over Adoke’s refusal to help facilitate payments to Mohammed Sani Abacha, son of the late military ruler, from the Malabu funds. He also claims Osinbajo used the case to prove his legal prowess and chase billions in potential asset recoveries.
“President Buhari wanted to exact a pound of flesh for my failure to help ‘Mohammed Sani’ get a share of the payments to Malabu,” Adoke wrote.
“His second-in-command, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, wanted to prove he was a genius who could use litigation to make Shell and Eni cough out billions.”
He claimed Osinbajo, acting as the de facto AGF in the early months of the Buhari administration, chaired the Presidential Committee on Asset Recovery (PCAR), which had a $5.5 billion recovery target. According to Adoke, Osinbajo’s associates, including lawyer Olabode Johnson, had high financial stakes, expecting legal commissions as high as 35%.
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Adoke also alleged that former AGF Abubakar Malami, who once represented Abacha’s interests in earlier disputes over the oil block, played a role in persecuting him to please both Buhari and the Abacha family.
He further accused local and international NGOs, including Global Witness and the HEDA Resource Centre, of running campaigns to boost their visibility and attract donor funding under the guise of anti-corruption activism.
“It was a cruel coalition of gold diggers, glory hunters and avengers,” he said, describing the effort as a “grand conspiracy.”
According to Adoke, these groups worked with Fabio De Pasquale, the lead Italian prosecutor in the Milan corruption trial, whom he accused of using the OPL 245 case to settle scores with Eni due to its historical ties with the late Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Adoke said the conspiracy against him was hatched in Abuja in late 2015, with De Pasquale allegedly meeting top Nigerian officials including Osinbajo, late Chief of Staff Abba Kyari, and EFCC operatives.
These meetings, he claimed, led to the filing of criminal charges against him and the launch of a $1.7 billion compensation suit against JP Morgan Chase in the UK, alongside a separate civil case against Shell and Eni.
Despite this, Adoke noted that all courts eventually ruled in his favour, with international and local legal systems determining there was no wrongdoing or loss to Nigeria in the transaction.
The unveiling of Adoke’s book is scheduled to be televised live on Channels TV from 11 a.m. on Thursday, July 11, and is expected to reignite public debate on one of Nigeria’s most controversial oil deals.
The former minister said he decided to write the book to document the truth, clear his name, and expose the forces that manipulated Nigeria’s anti-corruption institutions for political gain.
“They galvanized their global networks to promote a false, narrow, shallow and libelous narrative against me… dodging the truth and embellishing the facts to arrive at their predetermined destination,” he concluded.