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$2.1m bribery scandal: Ex-NNPCL official risks 25-year jail term in US
A former employee of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Paulinus Okoronkwo, faces up to 25 years in prison in the United States after being found guilty of charges linked to a $2.1 million bribery scheme involving a Swiss oil company.
According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Okoronkwo’s sentencing is scheduled for December 1. He was convicted on three counts of transactional money laundering, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.
The court documents revealed that in October 2015, the 58-year-old lawyer received $2,105,263 from a Switzerland-based subsidiary of Sinopec, Addax Petroleum, which was wired into his law firm’s account. The payment was allegedly disguised as consultancy fees for negotiating a settlement agreement with the NNPC regarding Addax’s drilling rights in Nigeria.
However, investigators from the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) discovered that the engagement letter signed by Addax with Okoronkwo’s law office, which carried a fake Lagos address, was fabricated to conceal the fact that the payment was actually a bribe aimed at securing more favourable financial terms for Addax’s crude oil operations in Nigeria.
The DoJ further alleged that Okoronkwo deliberately omitted the $2.1 million bribe from his 2015 federal income tax return, forming the basis for the tax evasion charge.
Okoronkwo was initially charged in January 2024 with three counts of engaging in monetary transactions involving proceeds from unlawful activity, alongside charges of tax evasion and obstruction of justice.
Reacting to the case last year, Bashir Ahmad, a former media aide to late President Muhammadu Buhari, disclosed via X (formerly Twitter) that Okoronkwo was dismissed from NNPC following his indictment. Ahmad stated:
“The person involved is Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, and NNPC dismissed him due to his involvement in the scandal. Before his termination, he was a general manager in the upstream department. On May 25, just days before President Goodluck Jonathan left office, Okoronkwo and other NNPC officials finalised an agreement with Addax Petroleum that cost Nigeria $2.4 billion.”
If convicted on all counts, Okoronkwo could spend decades in prison, marking one of the most high-profile bribery cases involving a former NNPC official in the United States.
