By, Onoriode Anselm
The corruption trial of former Nigerian petroleum minister Diezani AlisonMadueke took a dramatic turn on Wednesday as her defence lawyer tore apart the prosecution’s central narrative, revealing that the vast majority of luxury purchases allegedly made on her behalf were either not for her or have no proven link to the former minister.
Jonathan Laidlaw KC, closing the defence case at Southwark Crown Court, systematically dismantled the prosecution’s purchase schedules. He reminded the jury that the prosecution’s own witness, Harrods personal shopper Amina Hamila, testified that she saw AlisonMadueke shopping with businessman Kola Aluko on only a handful of occasions, approximately five times. Yet the prosecution’s schedule, running to 15 pages with 230 separate entries, claims that Aluko spent up to £2.8 million on luxury goods for the former minister. Laidlaw pointed out that AlisonMadueke’s passport shows she was not even in the country on at least 15 occasions when the schedule claims Aluko was buying items for her. “This is nonsense,” Laidlaw told the jury. “The NCA claims that all the shopping, running to 15 pages and up to £2.8 million, is for my client. But the actual witness said it was five times. Did the prosecution confront that reality? No.”
The defence lawyer’s remarks come after years of media reports portraying AlisonMadueke as a minister who lived a lavish lifestyle funded by oil executives: headlines that have included sensational claims of diamondstudded bras and spending that allegedly exceeded Nigeria’s national budget. Today, he argued that those stories bear little resemblance to the evidence actually presented in court. Laidlaw noted that the prosecution’s overall estimate of benefits allegedly received by AlisonMadueke runs into millions of pounds, figures that have dominated media coverage for a decade. But he said those numbers have been systematically overstated.
He pointed to a huge furniture shopping trip at Harrods and Vincenzo Caffarella in November 2013, which the prosecution claimed was for AlisonMadueke’s benefit. Laidlaw showed the jury photographs of the same furniture, with matching waybill numbers, that were later impounded in Apapa, Lagos. The consignment, he said, was destined for the Nigerian homes of Aluko and Jide Omokore, not the former minister. “The point is this: these purchases have nothing whatsoever to do with my client,” Laidlaw said. “She may have helped with the choosing. She may well have given advice. But this material was not for her. Given that we can demonstrate this on the prosecution’s own documents, you need to be very careful about the other materials you have seen.”
The defence also took aim at the prosecution’s reliance on the evidence of Aluko himself, who fled the UK in 2014 and has never been charged. Laidlaw reminded the jury that builder Tony Mulcahy, a prosecution witness, had described Aluko as a liar who stuttered when he was being untruthful. “Aluko told one lie after another,” Laidlaw said. “He ripped off his employees, he stopped paying his bills. There can be no trust placed on any information that came from him.”
Since her first arrest a decade ago, AlisonMadueke has been the subject of an intense media trial. The £2.8 million figure – based on the prosecution’s own purchase schedule – has been repeatedly cited as evidence of lavish corruption. Yet, Laidlaw argued, the gap between that media narrative and the courtroom evidence is vast. He noted that the prosecution itself conceded, in agreed fact 40, that there is no evidence AlisonMadueke ever improperly influenced the award of any oil or gas contract. “Either my client is corrupt,” Laidlaw said, “but the prosecution accepts she did nothing improper in contract awards. Or she is not. You cannot have it both ways.”
The defence also highlighted the extraordinary contradiction in the prosecution’s approach to Nigerian authorities. The Crown has asked the jury to trust evidence handled by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) when it comes to AlisonMadueke, while simultaneously dismissing EFCC letters in the case of codefendant Olatimbo Ayinde as “extraordinary and nonsensical”. “Either you trust the EFCC, or you don’t,” Laidlaw said. “You can’t have it both ways.”
Laidlaw returned to a theme he raised at the outset: why is a Nigerian minister being tried in London while the men alleged to have paid bribes, Aluko, Omokore, Peters, Sanomi and Okyere, remain free and uncharged? “One can be forgiven whether Parliament, in its wisdom when enacting the Bribery Act, could have contemplated this absurd situation where the people who are alleged to have paid the bribes are free, while the accused has been held prisoner for 11 years, unable to work, unable to do anything,” he told the jury. He noted that the NCA has done nothing to secure the extradition of any of the six businessmen, and that none of them is likely to ever face trial in the UK.
The defence’s core submission is that only a tiny fraction of the luxury purchases and benefits alleged by the prosecution can actually be linked to AlisonMadueke. Where the prosecution’s schedule runs to 15 pages, the defence’s own schedule, reflecting what can genuinely be attributed to her, is far shorter. Laidlaw reminded the jury that the burden of proof rests entirely on the prosecution. “It is not for my client to prove that reimbursements took place,” he said. “It is for the prosecution to prove that they did not.” He also pointed to the evidence of two businessmen, Igho Sanomi and Kevin Okyere, who have stated under oath that they were reimbursed for payments made on the former minister’s behalf. The NCA, Laidlaw noted, was unable to obtain the documentary evidence from Nigeria that supports those claims.
In his closing remarks, Laidlaw drew a direct parallel between the inflated figures that have fuelled AlisonMadueke’s media trial and the reality of the evidence. The prosecution’s own schedule alleged £2.8 million in Harrods purchases alone, a figure that has been repeated in countless headlines. Yet, as the defence demonstrated, that figure does not reflect what was actually bought for the former minister. The charges that remain, Laidlaw suggested, are a shadow of the sensational claims that have followed AlisonMadueke for years. From stories of diamondstudded bras to accusations of spending that dwarfed national budgets, the media trial has now been reduced, in the courtroom, to a handful of disputed shopping trips. The defence will continue its closing speech on Thursday. The jury is expected to retire for deliberations later this week. AlisonMadueke has consistently denied all charges.