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Thursday, November 13, 2025

The above titled book written by Mohammed Bello Adoke, former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice(2010-2015) contains detailed accounts of his sojourns, escapades and travails resulting from his patriotic services to his country, Nigeria.

My review of this book shall be in three parts or phases. The first part shall focus on OPL245 as a subject matter. The succeeding phase shall be based on his unsung records and achievements contained in the book and well recorded in history books, and the final phase shall throw light on the politically-instigated witch-hunts he faced after his tenure, and how he eventually got vindicated! Let the ride begin!!

In “OPL245: Inside Story of Nigerian $1.3Billion Oil Block,” Mohammed Bello Adoke delivers a powerful and necessary defence of his actions as Nigeria’s Attorney-General, masterfully reframing a narrative that has long been dominated by allegations of corruption into one of legal necessity and patriotic duty.

The book’s greatest strength is its meticulous, evidence-based approach, where Adoke presents himself not as a rogue actor, but as a “legal purist” confronted with an inherited quagmire of monumental proportions.

He compellingly argues that the resolution of the OPL 245 saga was the only legally tenable path forward to rescue a valuable national asset from the stranglehold of endless litigation and to protect the Nigerian treasury from a potentially devastating multi-billion dollar arbitration claim.

Adoke begins by expertly setting the stage, tracing the original sin of the OPL 245 controversy not to his tenure, but to the opaque and discretionary allocation of oil blocks under the military regime of General Sani Abacha.

He highlights how the block was awarded to the shadowy Malabu Oil and Gas, a company widely believed to be beneficially owned by Mohammed Sanni, the son of the late Nigerian dictator, General Sanni Abacha and the then Petroleum Minister, Dan Etete.

This historical context is crucial to Adoke’s thesis, as it establishes that the problematic ownership of the block was a pre-existing condition that civilian governments werie forced to manage. He is particularly scathing in his critique of President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose 2001 revocation of Malabu’s license is portrayed as an act of sheer impunity that “set OPL 245 on fire.”

Adoke strongly implies that this revocation was motivated not by legal principles but by the failed attempts of Obasanjo’s own associates to acquire a controlling stake in Malabu, an allegation that paints the subsequent legal chaos as a direct result of political meddling.

The core of Adoke’s argument, and the most compelling section of the book, details the intricate legal labyrinth he inherited upon becoming Attorney-General in 2010. He describes a “total mess” of conflicting legal realities; a subsisting Consent Judgment from 2006 that legally restored the block to Malabu, Shell’s ongoing international arbitration seeking nearly $2 billion in damages, and a web of other lawsuits.

Faced with this, he presents his choices in stark, binary terms: recommend that President Jonathan respect the rule of law and implement the binding court judgment, or advise him to “go rogue” and violate it. For Adoke, a man who prides himself on his legal integrity, the path was clear.

His recommendation to implement the Settlement Agreement was not an option but an obligation, a necessary act to uphold the sanctity of the judiciary and the rule of law in a fledgling democracy.

Adoke provides a painstakingly detailed justification of the 2011 Resolution Agreements, which he portrays as a masterstroke of negotiation that served Nigeria’s national interest. He emphasizes that the government’s role as an “obligor” was not a choice but a necessity, forced upon it by the profound distrust between Malabu and Shell.

This intermediation was the only way to break a stalemate that had left a prolific oil block dormant for over a decade while its “twin,” OPL 246, was already generating immense wealth. He passionately refutes the central allegation of corruption, arguing that the $1.1 billion paid into an escrow account was never Nigerian public funds.

He draws a critical analogy to the sale of a stake in OPL 246 by Danjuma’s Sapetro to a Chinese company for $1.7 billion, a transaction that was not controversial because the government was not required to intermediate. For Adoke, the only difference was the need for government involvement to resolve a pre-existing logjam, which then became the pretext for “opportunistic activism and spurious allegations of fraud.” These actors of blackmail, unsurprising to the reviewer, are the cashivists we all know!

Furthermore, Adoke directly confronts his critics, particularly taking aim at the “sanctimonious” objections from DPR Director Andrew Obaje. He effectively dismantles these objections by highlighting their inconsistency, noting that the same official had once assured Shell of Malabu’s valid ownership.

Adoke argues that Obaje’s later claim that the block should have been put up for competitive bidding fundamentally misunderstood the transaction; it was not a new award by the government but a legal assignment of rights by Malabu to new partners, a process perfectly permitted under the Petroleum Act.

He underscores that Obaje’s observations were duly considered and incorporated by a broad inter-ministerial committee, proving that the process was thorough, inclusive, and designed to safeguard the national interest. To this end, Adoke presents the resolution as a clear victory for Nigeria:

it freed the country from crippling arbitration, unlocked a valuable asset for development, and ultimately upheld the rule of law against the legacy of political interference that had plagued the block from its inception.

Finally for this first phase of review, according to Adoke’s narrative, the pre-Jonathan administrations collectively mishandled the OPL 245 matter. The Abacha regime created a problematic asset through a non-transparent allocation.

The Obasanjo administration then exacerbated the situation through a politically motivated revocation and a subsequent re-allocation that violated the rights of the original owner, thereby spawning a complex web of legal disputes.

The Yar’Adua administration, though well-intentioned, was unable to achieve a breakthrough. This legacy of political interference and legal impasse is presented as the critical context that forced the Jonathan administration into the role of a mediator and led to the controversial 2011 Resolution Agreements.

*To be continued…