A former Nigerian oil minister has been exonerated of accepting bribes from affluent oil executives in the form of opulent home stays and extravagant spending sprees in the UK. Diezani Alison-Madueke, 65, was found not guilty of five counts of receiving bribes and a charge of conspiring to commit bribery during a trial at Southwark Crown Court in London. Alison-Madueke served as Nigeria's oil minister from 2010 to 2015. She was also the first female president of OPEC, a club of oil exporters.
The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA), which has been investigating one of Africa's best-known politicians for 13 years, is devastated by the verdict. Defense attorneys questioned the prosecution's evidence from the beginning of the trial in January, claiming that crucial documents demonstrating Alison-Madueke's innocence had vanished in Nigeria.
Additionally, they claimed that the protracted wait in taking the matter to court was unfair and an indication of the "broken criminal justice system" in Britain.
Alison-Madueke's older brother, Doye Agama, 69, an archbishop at a Pentecostal church in Manchester, was also found not guilty by the jury of conspiring to conduct bribery. Olatimbo Ayinde, a 54-year-old oil sector executive, was acquitted of bribery and bribery of a foreign public officer.
Despite being an informant in a Nigerian anti-corruption investigation, she was prosecuted.