Career

In 2011, whereas he was Minister of Petroleum under military dictator General Sani Abacha, Dan Etete facilitated the transfer of payment of $1.1bn to a fake company he setted up before. The fake company, Malabu Oil and Gas was set up in 1998 by Etete using a false identity so as to award himself a lucrative oil block, OPL245, for which he paid only $2m of the $20m legally required by the state. At the time of Jonathan"s government helping to facilitate the transfer of payment from Shell and Eni to the fake company, Etete was already a convicted felon of money laundering in France.

The Economist reports that only $800m out of the $1.1bn meant for Malabu Oil and Gas was ever remitted by the Nigerian government.

The Nigerian Attorney General, Mohammed Bello Adoke, who signed the documents involved in facilitating the payments, denied the rest was shared by public officials. The transfer to convicted felon, Etete, only came to public light when a Russian lawyer that claimed to have helped Malabu negotiate a deal with the Jonathan"s government sued in New York for a $66m unpaid commission.

Both Shell and Eni, as of September 2014, are under investigation for corruption by the United Kingdom and Italy authorities for the incidence.