Former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has been granted bail by the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London, the United Kingdom.
63-year-old Alison-Madueke, who was charged to court in the UK with bribery offences, was granted bail after appearing before the court on Monday, October 2, 2023.
The British police had, on August 22, stated that the former minister accepted bribes in return for awarding multi-million-pound oil and gas contracts while serving as petroleum minister from 2010 to 2015.
Alison-Madueke, who served in the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, was charged with receiving bribes in the form of cash, luxury goods, flights on private jets, and the use of high-end properties in Britain in return for awarding oil contracts.
However, the former minister, while appearing at the court on Monday, spoke only to give her name, date of birth, and address.
According to Reuters, she was not asked to formally enter a plea, although her lawyer, Mark Bowen, told the court she would be pleading not guilty.
READ ALSO: Alison-Madueke faces corruption trial Oct 2 in London
The charges against her, read out in court, all related to events alleged to have taken place in London.
Prosecutor Andy Young said Alison-Madueke was alleged to have accepted a wide range of advantages in cash and in kind from people who wanted to receive or continue to receive the award of oil contracts which he said were worth billions of dollars in total.
The advantages included a delivery of 100,000 pounds ($121,620) in cash, the payment of private school fees for her son, and the use and refurbishment of several luxurious properties in London and in the English countryside.
They also included the use of a Range Rover car, payment of bills for chauffeur-driven cars, furniture, and purchases from the upmarket London department store Harrods and from Vincenzo Caffarella, which sells Italian decorative arts and antiques.
District Judge, Michael Snow, granted Alison-Madueke bail but imposed terms, including an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, an electronic tag to be worn at all times and a 70,000-pound surety to be paid before she could leave the court building.
Her next court appearance will be at Southwark Crown Court, which deals with serious criminal cases, on October 30.
Alison-Madueke is the second high-profile Nigerian politician to face prosecution in Britain in recent years, following former Delta State Governor, James Ibori, who was convicted of fraud and money laundering in 2012 and received a 13-year jail sentence.
Alison-Madueke was arrested in London in 2015, shortly after stepping down as minister, and was charged in August with six bribery offences.
She has spent the past eight years on police bail, living in St John’s Wood, an expensive area of London.
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