Diezani Alison-Madueke was found not guilty on Tuesday of five counts of accepting bribes and one charge of conspiracy to commit bribery after a trial at London's Southwark Crown Court. The former Nigerian oil minister was cleared alongside Doye Agama, who was acquitted of conspiracy to commit bribery, and Olatimbo Ayinde, who was found not guilty of bribery and bribery of a foreign public official.
The verdict ends a 13-year investigation by Britain's National Crime Agency into one of Nigeria's most prominent political figures. Alison-Madueke, 65, told the court she had never asked for or sought a bribe and said Nigerian ministers were not allowed to hold foreign bank accounts while serving overseas, leaving her to rely on wealthy businessmen to cover living expenses when her London office was in disarray.
Prosecutors said she improperly allowed powerful men with lucrative oil contracts to bankroll her extravagant lifestyle. Alexandra Healy KC told jurors the former minister benefited from luxury home stays and lavish spending sprees in the UK, and the indictment named six oil industry figures, though none were charged. The defense countered that key documents proving her innocence had gone missing in Nigeria and argued that the long delay in bringing the case to trial was unfair.
Alison-Madueke's career in Nigeria's oil sector had already made her a familiar name long before the case reached court. She became the first female member on the Nigerian board of Shell in 2006, was appointed oil minister in 2010 and later became the first female president of Opec in 2014. In court, she also described herself as “Madam due process,” a nod to the reputation she said she tried to build inside a deeply patriarchal system.
The acquittals close a case that was watched closely in Nigeria and in London, but they do not answer every question that surrounded it. The court heard competing accounts of where the money came from and what records existed, yet the public version of that evidence remains incomplete. For now, the legal outcome is clear: the jury rejected the bribery case against Alison-Madueke and the two other defendants, ending a prosecution that had stretched across more than a decade.
