ALLEGED CORRUPTION: Report suggests Dominican Republic may be reason Diezani has escaped prosecution since 2015

A report has emerged, suggesting that former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, may have bought her way out of being arrested, or prosecuted for any wrongdoing.

Mrs Alison-Madueke, was reportedly appointed Commissioner for Trade and Investment in the Dominican Republic and handed a diplomatic passport a few months before the end of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, a report has revealed.

Several attempts by the Federal Government and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to repatriate the former minister who has been in the United Kingdom since 2015 back to the country to stand trial for multiple charges of corruption and money laundering have been futile.

Reports had also said the Bayelsa-born former executive director of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) had been receiving chemotherapy treatment for cancer in a London hospital.

The report by the Qatar-based network, Al Jazeera, said the former minister may have purchased a $2.2 million choice property near the United Nations in upscale Manhattan, New York, for the Dominican Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, in order to obtain the passport.

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In a documentary titled: “Diplomats for sale,” Al Jazeera revealed how politically exposed persons, including leaders of international drug cartels, purchase diplomatic passports from Caribbean countries for a fee which ranges between $250,000 and $2million depending on the personality involved.

The bribe is allegedly paid to the leader of that country who then appoints the buyer as an ambassador or a diplomat. The buyer is subsequently issued with a diplomatic passport which gives him or her immunity from prosecution based on the Vienna Convention of 1961.

According to Al Jazeera, shortly before Diezani left office, there were already reports that she had allegedly stolen billions of dollars.

Worried that the incoming President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration might probe her, the former minister allegedly fled to London and obtained a diplomatic passport from the Dominican Republic premier himself.

The report said in London, she (Diezani) was “personally handed a Dominican diplomatic passport by Prime Minister Skerrit; a passport which could shield her from criminal charges. We found documents showing a few days later that a shell company is formed in Delaware, an American state where laws mean the true owners of a company are kept secret.

“Four months later, that shell company buys a New York apartment for $2.2m with no mortgage. Property records confirm that the prime minister’s wife, Melissa, was a resident. Photos placed the Skerrit family there. Both Diezani and Skerrit deny any links to the company that bought the apartment.”

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