A former senior staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Paulinus Okoronkwo, is facing the possibility of a 25-year prison sentence in the United States after being found guilty of accepting a $2.1 million bribe from a Swiss oil company while serving in the corporation.
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California confirmed that sentencing has been scheduled for December 1. According to court records, the 58-year-old lawyer failed to declare the bribe payment in his 2015 federal income tax return, leading to tax evasion charges alongside money laundering and obstruction of justice.
Investigators revealed that in October 2015, Okoronkwo received $2,105,263 from Addax Petroleum, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of Sinopec, which was paid into the account of his law firm. Although the payment was officially described as consultancy fees for negotiating a settlement agreement with the NNPC over drilling rights, prosecutors argued that the contract was merely a cover-up designed to disguise the bribe.
Details presented in court showed that the letter of engagement signed with Okoronkwo’s law office, which carried a fictitious Lagos address, was part of the scheme to conceal the illicit transaction. The payment, according to investigators, was aimed at securing more favourable financial terms for Addax in its oil exploration dealings with Nigeria.
Okoronkwo was indicted in January 2024 on multiple charges, including three counts of engaging in monetary transactions involving illicit funds, one count of tax evasion, and another for obstruction of justice.
His case attracted wide attention back home after Bashir Ahmad, a former aide to late President Muhammadu Buhari, disclosed on social media that Okoronkwo had been dismissed from the NNPC following the scandal. Ahmad also recalled that just days before President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration ended in May 2015, Okoronkwo and other officials of the corporation finalized a controversial deal with Addax Petroleum which, according to him, cost Nigeria about $2.4 billion.
