Court Clears Aiteo Boss, Benedict Peters Of Corruption Charges, Awards N200m Against EFCC, Attorney General, 5 Others

A High Court in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, has dismissed five-year-old allegations of corruption, bribery, and money laundering against Benedict Peters, the head of Aiteo, calling them unfounded, baseless, and an abuse of government authority.

According to the court’s ruling, which was delivered by Justice Olukayode Adeniyi, Benedict Peters is a person with a regular source of income and the rightful owner of some properties that were incorrectly listed as belonging to Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke.

In his 94-page landmark decision on the lawsuit brought by Benedict Peters and three companies, Justice O.A. Adeniyi, the presiding judge, strongly denounced the Defendants’ conduct and stated that they “fraudulently designed, suppressed and misrepresented facts in supposition that the Claimants’ properties…legitimately acquired belonged to Mrs. Deziani Alison Madueke, former Minister of Petroleum Resources.” 

The court declared that “the unlawful means of the Defendants’ conspiracy was to extract by intimidation, coercion, assets, properties, and money to which the claimants are legitimately entitled,” and it denounced the “deceitful sham allegations by the Defendants.”

Moreover, while delivering judgement on the suit brought by Benedict Peters and three of his companies, Collinwood Limited, Rosewood Investments Limited and Walworth Properties Limited against the Attorney General of the Federation, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of the United Kingdom, Helen Hughes of the CPS, the National Crime Agency of the United Kingdom and its investigators, Stacey Boniface and John Bavister, the court consequently awarded the sum of N200m damages jointly and severally against the EFCC, the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, and 5 others, in favour of Mr Benedict Peters and the three companies.

Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, Chief Emeka Ozoani, SAN, Chief Andrew Oru, Chief Nobis Elendu, Esq., and a stellar group of other attorneys filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs on May 11, 2017, and an amended statement of claim was filed on January 31, 2019. Farouk Abdullah led others to represent the AGF, while Suleiman Jibrin led others to represent the EFCC and six other organisations.

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The court, in awarding the sum of N200m damages against the Defendants in this apparently new area, the ‘tort of carousel fraud’, argued by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN (leading Emeka Ozoani, SAN and the other eminent lawyers), strongly condemned the action of the Defendants in fraudulently misrepresenting and facts in support of their false claims that the properties belonging to the Plaintiffs (Benedict Peters, Collinwood Ltd, Rosewood Investments Ltd and & Walworth Properties Ltd), which had been legitimately acquired, belonged to Mrs Deziani Alison Madueke, former Minister of Petroleum Resources; and were thus allegedly unlawfully acquired, a “facts which the defendants knew, or ought to know were false, incorrect and baseless, constitute the tort of carousel fraud, the court added. 

The Claimants had in the suit claimed against the Defendants, the sum of $5b USD (equivalent of N1.5 trillion at the then exchange rate of 315 to one US Dollar), for the tort of carousel fraud. 

The properties which belong to the Plaintiffs, but falsely and wrongfully alleged to belong to Diezani Alison Madueke are, respectively, 270-17 STREET, UNIT #4204, ATLANTA, GEORGIA; FLAT 5 PARKVIEW, 83-86 PRINCE ALBERT ROAD, ST. JOHN’S WOOD, LONDON; FLAT 58 HARLEY HOUSE MARYLEBONE, LONDON; and, APARTMENTS 4 & 5, ARLINGTON ROAD, LONDON.

Justice Adeniyi held that the EFCC founded its case mainly on an undated and unsigned document that bore no name of its alleged maker, titled, “Highly Confidential Attorney Work”, allegedly issued by one Donald Chidi Amangbo. 

He held that failure by the Plaintiffs to call the said Amangbo (the alleged maker of the document) for possible cross-examination, rendered the totality of the purported report incredible, unreliable and of no probative value to be relied upon by the court, more so as the purported report was undated, unsigned and had no name of the alleged maker.

Following its complete agreement with Ozekhome’s arguments, the court further held as follows:

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“It is hereby declared that the Defendants, by fraudulent design, suppressed and misrepresented facts in supposition that the Claimants’ properties…. legitimately acquired, belonged to Mrs Deziani Alison Madueke, former Minister of Petroleum in Nigeria, and/or were unlawfully acquired, a fact they knew or ought to know were false, incorrect and baseless, constitute the tort of carousel fraud.

“It is hereby further declared that the predominant purpose of the deceitful sham allegations by the Defendants that the Assets/properties… belonged to persons other than the Claimants was directly intended (albeit to inflict economic loss on the Claimants just as much as it was to unlawfully profit the Defendants).

“It is hereby further declared that the unlawful means of conspiracy of the Defendants was to extract by intimidation, coercion, the assets, properties, and monies to which the Claimants are legitimately entitled.”

“The Defendants, their operatives, officers, agents, servants in whatever manner and howsoever called, are hereby jointly or severally restrained from interfering with the proprietary rights and/or interests of the Claimants, their agents, alter-ego or privies in relation to the properties listed in this suit.

“The Defendants either by themselves jointly/severally, their operatives, officers, investigators, servants, agents, associates, whatsoever called, are hereby restrained from interfering/continued interference with the person of the 1st Claimant, either by way of arrest, criminal indictment, charge, interdiction, extradition, or in any other manner infringing on his personal liberty and freedom of movement on the facts and circumstances of this case, especially in the face of subsisting judgments of various courts on the issue.

“The sum of N200,000,000 (two hundred million naira) only is hereby awarded as general damages, jointly in favour of the Claimants against the Defendants, jointly and severally, for the unlawful interference, economic loss, loss of corporate goodwill from creditors, expropriation of personal assets and proprietary rights of the Claimants”.

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The court further held that it is safe to conclude that the Claimants have firmly established proprietary ownership of the four (4) properties to which the present action relates based on the evidence led on the record and materials made available to the court.

The court further determined that the Defendants were shown to have conspired with the dominant intent to cause the Claimants suffering and damages through the “undisputed evidence of CWI and in that regard proceeded against the assets and properties of the Claimants before the Federal High Court in Nigeria based on open-source information which are not reliable.” 

The Defendants jointly sought and obtained a Restraint Order in the United Kingdom for interim forfeiture of the assets and properties of the Claimants through the conspiracy to harm the Claimants, and even after learning the truth, they have not yet released the Claimants’ property.