$6bn Mambilla fraud: EFCC attempted to damage my name, Agunloye tells Court 

A one-time Minister of Power and Steel, Olu Agunloye on Thursday told the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) that the narratives pushed out by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power project was a deliberate attempt to damage his name.

Agunloye said this while being cross-examined by the counsel for EFCC, Dr Wahab Shittu, in the defamation case he filed against the commission before Justice Peter Kekemeke, sitting at Maitama, Abuja.

He had in his writ of summons in the suit, marked FCT/HC/CV/1199/2024, filed on his behalf and argued by his counsel, Adeola Adedipe SAN, claimed that EFCC has damaged his good name and integrity into murky waters, alleging him to be corrupt and fraudulent individual through a post published on it’s official website and other allied online platforms, with the caption, “EFCC arraigns Agunloye over $6billion fraud”.

He, therefore, sought a declaration of the court that the post is false and defamatory of him.

Agunloye also sought an order for EFCC to retract the defamatory publication against him and tender unreserved apologies.

He further sought the payment of compensation of N1billion as general and exemplary damage to him.

At the resumed hearing in the case, Agunloye told the court that the EFCC’s publication put him in the situation of not awarding a built, operate and transfer (BOT) project at no cost to the Federal Government but awarding a $6billion contract

According to him, “It is a deliberate attempt by EFCC to push things around, misinform the public and paint me as one reckless minister who was involved in a $6billion contract and was eventually captured.

“It was an attempt to say that I awarded the contract without approval and to have taken bribe of N5million 16 years after and damage the only property I have, which is my name.”

The former minister told the court that he was the Minister of Power when he wrote a memo to former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the Mambilla project, which was a built, operate and transfer basis.

Asked if he obtained the approval of the then president, the claimant said he requested the president to approve the project and the president approved it and he subsequently brought a memo to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) as directed by the then President Obasanjo.

Agunloye informed the court that the Mambilla project he awarded in 2003 was not the subject of the international arbitration, adding that, “the subject matter of the arbitration instigated by Sunrise (Power and Transmission Company Limited) on the terms of settlement.”

When EFCC counsel asked him to confirm if Obasanjo publicly said he did not give approval for the Mambilla project, Agunloye said the defendant counsel was right.

He, however, added that, “He (Obasanjo) waited for 20 years after he left office, four years after I left office and 15 years after his friend and lawyer, Afe Babalola wrote to him in February, 2005 that that contract was duly awarded.”

Agunloye told the court that he was aware that the Federal Government was challenging matters arising from the Mambilla contract that was awarded in 2017 by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari and not the one he awarded in 2003.

According to him, the Federal Government cancelled the contract he awarded in 2003, which he said was at a zero cost to the government, six times and rewarded it six but ran into troubles at the sixth time in 2017.

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