Although money laundering cases
against him show that Lucky Igbinedion may have stolen several millions of
dollar from the treasury of Edo State during the eight years he was governors,
details from a court case he instituted against Venezuelan state owned oil
company, Petroleos De Venezuela S.A (PDVSA) and alleged conman, Fransisco
Gonzalez, suggest that the scam may have caused serious damage to his finances.
In 2007 the ex-governor lost over N3
billion to Venezuelan fraudsters in a botched fuel import deal. He has since
instituted a $600 million suit against PDVSA and Mr. Gonzalez in a U.S.
District Court in New York.
Court documents seen by PREMIUM TIMES
revealed that two Manhattan-based law firms previously contracted by
Igbinedion’s company, Skanga Energy and Marine limited, have withdrawn from the
case over non-payment of their retainer.
One of them, a personal injury law
firm, Robert Dunne LLC, quit because of the inability of Mr. Igbinedion’s
Skanga to pay fee as low as $3,800.00 (N627,000).
“Plaintiff has failed and refused to
pay Dunne Firm fees reasonably earned for legal services rendered, although
demand for such payment has been made several times,” an affidavit informing
the court of its decision to withdraw for the case read.
The other law firm, Robinson Brog
Leinwand Greene Genovese & Gluck P.C, also complained that efforts to
establish direct communication with Skanga had been difficult as the company
preferred to be reached through a Mississippi-based Nigerian owned “two lawyer”
(husband and wife) law firm, Salu & Salu.
David Burger, a lawyer with the law firm of
Robinson Brog, swore, amongst other reasons, in an affidavit that the ability
of his law firm to represent Skanga is “being severely impeded” by “the
continued inability of the my firm to have any adequate direct communication
with Skanga, with delayed and inadequate communications only relayed through a
two lawyer firm Located in Mississippi.”
According to David Burger, Skanga
owes his law firm a total of $114,000 (N18,810,000) in unpaid fee.
Olufemi Salu, of Salu & Salu,
also admitted to the court that the scam has rendered Mr. Igbinedion and his
businesses insolvent. In fact, on 23 August 2013, it filed a motion asking the
court to compel PDVSA to pay for the travel expenses and lodging of its
estranged attorney, Mr Dunne, for the deposition of its own officials in Lagos.
“The action of PDVSA, subject matter
of this lawsuit, crippled the business of Plaintiff. Plaintiff currently
struggles to pay its attorneys. Court should take judicial notice that
Plaintiff’s previous attorneys withdrew their representation over dispute
regarding attorneys’ fees. Consequently, Plaintiff is unable to afford
deposition scheduled in Nigeria,” he argued.
Now Igbinedion is stuck with Mr.
Salu, a lawyer based in Mississippi-Tennessee. Though he claimed to have
represented major international corporations like “Texaco, Mobil Oil, Chase
Manhattan Bank, ship owners, and foreign governments”, his areas of expertise
are personal injury, car accidents and fatal car accidents.
Pitching Mr. Salu against lawyers
from upscale law firm like Foley Hoag LLP looks like a rigged contest. Foley
Hoag is based in Boston, Massachusetts, with offices in Washington DC and
Paris. Ranked number six in the “20 Best Law Firms To Work For In The Nation”,
by U.S. company rating organization, Vault, Foley Hoag was involved in Boston’s
early civil rights struggle and won the 1970 lawsuit that brought desegregation
to Boston public schools. In 2008, the firm successfully represented the
government of Bolivia in the dispute over the nationalisation of telecom
company, Entel.
This mismatch was apparent as Mr.
Salu was literally taken to school by Lawrence Martin, a top partner from Foley
Hoag’s Washington office. Mr Salu did not help his case as he made
contradictory statements and his transcript appeared to have been written in a
hurry.
In one utterly ridiculous instance,
Mr. Salu, despite being presented with Skanga’s Statement of Annual Returns
2006-2008 certified as true by the Corporate Affairs Commission and the
Nigerian Embassy in Washington, argued that Skanga directors weren’t aware that
such filling has been made.
Clearly stated in the documents were
the shareholders of Skanga and the number of shares they owned, yet Mr. Salu
said, “Skanga’s Directors were not aware of these filings.”
Further, in a desperate attempt to
discredit the defendant, Mr. Salu unwittingly revealed that Skanga might have
been consistently submitting false statements of return to the CAC. He argued
that the court should disregard Skanga’s CAC certified Statement of Returns
presented by the defendant on the ground that the accounting firm employed by
Skanga to audit its account, Dynamic Premier, has no listed address and “is not
related to any professional entity as it is customary in Nigeria and the rest
of the world.”
Mr. Salu did not reply written
questions PREMIUM TIMES sent to him via email about his involvement in the
case. He also did not return calls made to his office phone number.
String of misfortunes
The Venezuelan affair is one in the
series of financial losses the mustachios ex-governor has suffered since he
left office. A business stint gone awry in South Africa saw him losing millions
of dollars. According to news reports, After the death of his South African
partner in a joint venture, Mr. Igbinedion tried but failed to reclaim his
investment in the business, which he did through his late partner to avoid
South African regulators on the lookout for investors with dirty money.
Mr. Igbinedion then moved his
business base to Sierra Leone where Skanga became one of the leading fishing
companies in the country. It is alleged that Mr. Igbinedion also owns some of
the most expensive real estates in the country. However, Sierra Leonean media
reports suggest that Skanga may also be going through a difficult phase in the
West African country. There was a report about violent protests against the
company by dissatisfied youth.
The loss of over N3 billion to the
fraudster in the oil import deal also appears to have sounded the death knell
of Skanga operations in Nigeria. When PREMIUM TIMES visited Skanga’s official
address in upscale Victoria Island, the premises had been overtaken by weeds
and looked desolate. In fact, the Lagos State government has sealed the
property for defaulting on land use tax and has placed a notice for an order to
sell the property.
Intrigues and lies
True to the observation of Skanga’s
first law firm, Robinson Brog, the company has approached the lawsuit in manner
that left more to be desired. The firm has done everything to shield important
persons involved in the case from testifying. In utter disregard of facts
contained in officially verified documents, it has lied about the ownership of
the company, and under curious circumstances, has alleged losing certain vital
documents requested by defense counsels.
It seems Skanga’s approach to
pursuing the lawsuit is to tell lies and which it further attempts to cover up
by more lies.
During his deposition, which was conducted
via Skype, Mr Igbinedion said he could not remember when Skanga was
established. He also denied ever holding any shares in Skanga. But certified
copies of Skanga’s Statement of Annual Returns show that Mr. Igbinedion was the
principal shareholder of Skanga with 12 million shares.
Mr. Igbinedion also lied about his
money laundering conviction. He said he was convicted for what he termed
“political negligence.” He also lied that the Federal government seized none of
his properties.
Mr. Salu further described Mr
Igbinedion’s money laundering trial and conviction as “a corrupt political
inquisition that is fairly common in Nigerian politics.”
“After he served his two terms in
office and left office, political opponents instituted kangaroo criminal proceedings
against him for ‘neglect’ in listing one of his personal accounts that had been
dormant for a while. His fine was less than $20,000, that is, the amount in the
account at the time,” he said.
Curiously, six years after it first
instituted the lawsuit, Skanga has not served Arevenca and Mr González a notice
of the suit and in fact has not made any effort to serve them, according to
court documents.
Skanga also refused to share the
record of its correspondence with Arevenca when requested by PDVSA lawyers.
Managing Director of Skanga, Christian Imoukhuede claimed his Yahoo email
account was hacked and he lost access to it. He said he lost the mails in his
inbox, sent, trash and all his contacts after Yahoo restored the email.
However, He said the emails in his inbox was “partially restored” after he
changed his browser from Mozilla Firefox to Internet Explorer.
A computer scientist, Alexander
Gessen, employed by PDVSA to do a forensic analysis of Mr. Imoukhuede’s laptop
said his account of how he lost the emails was not “credible.”
“Merely switching internet browser is
not an industry recognized method of recovering deleted emails. Nor does it
offer plausible explanation why inbox items would be restored, but sent items
would not be. I am not aware of any way in which merely switching Internet
browsers would result in recovery of deleted emails,” he said.
Just like it did with Bright
Igbinedion, Skanga also did everything possible to shield another director,
Adebayo Osho from appearing as witnesses.
It particularly contested the deposition of Mr. Osho who was its Nigerian
lawyer and a listed shareholder of the company with 2.5 million shares. Mr.
Osho is the proprietor of the law firm, Adebayo Osho and Company, Skanga’s
lawyers objected to the deposition of Mr. Osho on the ground that he was the
company lawyer and might break the client-lawyer confidentiality during
deposition.
Efforts by PREMIUM TIMES to interview
Mr. Osho were unsuccessful. A lawyer who has an office at the same address as
him said he vacated his office three years ago without leaving his new contact
address. All the contact phone numbers on his website were also not functional.
