Laolu Akande

New York

In the highly lucrative international oil business, former friends can quickly become bitter foes and so goes the story of three oil companies all of which formed a partnership to develop a marginal oil field in Nigeria. But just about a year into the deal, the chords of unity are broken giving way to charges of blackmail. Partners go their different ways-Several years after one is bankrupt, later another is dead and almost 8 years after the third is left holding the bag. Now the burden is almost being extended into the campaign of Hillary Clinton for President. Is this a story of sour grapes?

Details of a multi-million dollar oil business partnership which fell out between three international oil firms in Nigeria, US and UK are emerging as fallouts of the deal is now being linked with the ongoing US presidential campaign of former President Bill Clinton’s wife, New York Senator Hillary Clinton.

According to the McClatchy Newspapers, Nigerian born Dr. Kase Lawal who is the Chief Executive Officer of one of the oil companies, CAMAC, a Houston based international oil conglomerate is a fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton and an old Nigerian case involving his company's subsidiary in Nigeria, Allied Energy and 2 other oil companies raises questions on the sources of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign finances.

Clinton campaign spokesman Jay Carson had said in an interview that CAMAC’s chairman is an upstanding member of his US community and deflected any suggestion that Lawal’s contribution to the campaign was problematic.

Investigations reveal that the Nigerian oil company involved in the triangular oil deal is Cavendish Petroleum, owned by Alhaji Mai Deribe, which won the Nigerian Federal Government license for the Obe oil field while a Dublin based publicly quoted oil resources company Tuskar was brought in to help develop the field in partnership between Cavendish, Tuskar and Allied Energy, owned by CAMAC, where Lawal is CEO.

However due mainly to the failure of the deal which lasted between 1999 and 2000, Tuskar went belly up and into receivership, while Cavendish reported perceived fraudulent practices against its partners to the Nigerian police.

The police filed charges including forgery and stealing allegations against the partners and their firms in Nigeria involving top officials including Kase Lawal, whose CAMAC owned Allied Energy. But after several legal twists in courts, the case was essentially left opened by the police and seemed to have gone dormant until recently when Internet reports and then a US newspaper linked a Clinton fundraiser-ie CAMAC’s CEO to the charges of fraudulent practices.

For instance the case went through the high and appeal courts, prosecuted by ACP Nuhu Ribadu before he was named to EFCC, but the police lost the case until it went to the Supreme Court on the issue of whether the police had prosecutorial powers of its own independent of the Attorney-General, for which the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 in favor of the police in the now famous FGN vs. Osahan.

However since that ruling the police had simply left the case dormant and at least three Police Inspectors-General have now passed without the case being taken to its logical conclusion in the court to determine the culpability of the oil company officials accused by the police.

However in an indication of the FG’s resolve to rest the case which has remained unproven against the individuals and oil firms charged, one of those officers which Cavendish and the police criminal complaints had sued on the fraudulent charges has remained in top employment with the NNPC.

George Osahan, for whom the case was named against the police, as representing Allied and CAMAC’s –both owned by Kase Lawal-in the three way oil deal-has since been appointed to top NNPC positions by the federal government. Osahan was later named the Managing Director of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company and later moved to NAPIMS and is still a top executive in the NNPC.

While the allegations against the oil companies had said the companies defrauded the government by illegally pumping 10 m barrels of oil from the block allocated to Cavendish, industry experts say the block did not pump up to 1 million barrels altogether during the entire life-span of the agreement whose collapse actually led to Tuskar’s bankruptcy.

Besides, the oil block, which was alleged, to have been stolen from Cavendish by the two other oil companies with whom the three had initially entered an agreement is now being managed and operated by another European oil firm Tranfigura, based in Switzerland.

Equally, oil industry sources observed that the Nigerian oil block, which was licensed to Cavendish, under the indigenisation of the oil industry scheme in 1999 was considered a marginal oil block. Cavendish owner Alhaji Deribe had sought the assistance of Lawal’s CAMAC, which was also, then actively developing its own license to lift oil. CAMAC approached US-based Conoco, its own partners who determined that the field was not lucrative for a major oil company of its status.

CAMAC itself had tried 19 other major oil companies in the world seeking a partnership for its own oil block until Conoco agreed to its proposal.

When Cavendish persisted that even though the oil block was marginal for a major oil company it could still be profitable for some other oil company, CAMAC then secured the partnership of the Dublin-based Tuskar. So Cavendish, who had the license, Tuskar who had the technical expertise and Allied which facilitated the agreement all three went into a partnership to drill the Obe oil field.

However as the US newspaper reported last week quoting CAMAC’s CEO “even before production started… Cavendish began to demand bigger monthly payments from CAMAC and Tuskar and when they refused, a ‘blackmail started.’”

The US paper further reported that Kase Lawal said he suspects that some police officials were “unduly influenced” to bring up what is now being perceived as sour grapes allegations. The US newspaper reported that the lawyer to Cavendish’s owner Mai Deribe declined comment, so too Mr. Nuhu Ribadu who had prosecuted the cases to the Supreme Court on behalf of the Police.

When Tuskar and CAMAC fell out with Cavendish, the Nigerian oil firm refused to cooperate anymore with the operation of the Obe oil field, causing Tuskar’s entire business to fail. A UK based newspaper Telegraph reported in its March 14 edition 2001 reported Alhaji Mai Deribe, chairman of Cavendish, saying "Cavendish is not aware that Tuskar Resources has any interest in the Obe field, despite repeated claims being asserted to this effect by Tuskar."

But that same report quoted Gene Manson, then Tuskar managing director, saying, "Tuskar has an interest in the field. We know Cavendish knows that. We are going on to work out our differences."

The interest of the US paper in the story seemed to have been fuelled by the discovery that CAMAC's CEO raised campaign funds for wife of former President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton in her US presidential race.

Here in the US, Kase Lawal’s company is much celebrated as one of the biggest black-owned businesses, and Lawal is the only black board member of what is known as one of the biggest Ports Authority in the world-ie-the Ports of Houston Authority.

Robot  Villager

# 1 Laolu Akande...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 13.04.2008 00:23