#PanamaPapers: How ex-NNPC GMD Operated Secret Account To Buy Posh Property While In Office

 

A former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Abubakar Lawal Yar’Adua, bought a posh house worth £890,000 in London using a secret offshore company he registered in the British Virgin Island. Documents retrieved from the Mossack Fonseca, exclusively obtained by a German newspaper,
Süddeutsche Zeitung, and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with PREMIUM TIMES and other media organisations around the world, showed the offshore company to be Hydrocarbon Assets Investments Limited.


Documents retrieved from the Mossack Fonseca, exclusively obtained by a German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with PREMIUM TIMES and other media organisations around the world, showed the offshore company to be Hydrocarbon Assets Investments Limited.

Mr. Yar’Adua bought the house in 2008 while serving as the Group Managing Director of NNPC.
He became NNPC GMD in August 2007 and was removed from office in January 2009.
In April 2008, eight months after he became the GMD of NNPC, Mr. Yar’Adua used a London residence address at Beechwood Hall, Regents Park Road, London N3 3AT to register an offshore company, Hydrocarbon Assets Investments Limited in the British Virgin Island.
British Virgin Island is a tax haven favoured by corrupt public officials, money launderers, celebrities and businessmen dealing in illicit finance. 

Mr. Yar’Adua, while serving as a public official violated Section 6(b) of the Code of Conduct Act, which says a public office holder shall not, “except where he is not employed on a full‐time basis, engage or participate in the management or running of any private business, profession or trade.”

To cover his track, Mr. Yar’Adua prepared a corporate smokescreen by appointing two front companies to act as directors of Hydrocarbon Assets Investments Limited.
Documents sighted by PREMIUM TIMES showed that on November 7, 2008, Mr. Yar’Adua was sole director of Hydrocarbon Assets Investments Limited.
He resigned on the said day but appointed two companies, Gudson Limited and Roselle Limited as directors of his company.

stay tuned...