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Jeffery Tesler, a Briton, who distributed the infamous $180 million Halliburton bribes to senior government officials, also told a French court that Mr. Etete tricked him into believing that Mr. Amafegha was a real person and how he had paid millions of dollars into Mr. Amafegha’s account.

Insiders in Shell said before partnering with Malabu, the Dutch firm did an extensive due diligence on the Nigerian company and was aware that a fictional character was on the board of the company.

Apart from the illegality in partnering with Malabu, the outright purchase of OPL 245 license from Malabu (through the Nigerian government) was also an illegal act by Shell and ENI as it contravened condition 4b of the approval letter for the oil block given to Malabu.

Sources say the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the Nigerian agency overseeing the licensing of and regulation of companies operating in the upstream and downstream sectors of the country’s oil and gas industry, would not have approved the sale of OPL 245 had President Goodluck Jonathan not suddenly “restructured” the agency to plant favourite officials with specific instruction to subvert the law and due process in the Malabu-Shell deal.

“There was pressure on Obaje to approve the sale, but he did not. That is why they brought the new Director, who is a Shell man all through,” an industry source said. “Do you think it is a coincidence that a Shell VP was brought in as head of DPR at a time when Shell and the FG wanted the DPR to approve the sale of one of Nigeria’s richest oil blocks,” the source queried.

“Shell cannot say it was not aware that Etete gave the oil block to himself, they cannot say that they were not aware that the guideline on the block prevented them from partnering or buying it from Malabu,” an oil industry source with links to the multinational company stated

Bassey noted, for instance, that although the PIB is a good first step, the document as packaged, is not as strong as it ought to be. According to him, the PIB does not have stringent pro-people and pro-environment provisions, as the country, despite the PIB, will still be having illegal routine gas flaring. He blamed the delay in passing the bill on what he described as ‘toxic politics’ and pressure from the IOCs who have openly said they would not accept laws that curb their excessive profits as well as wrong perception by some legislators that provision of funds for communities mean more money to the oil-bearing states.

Nnimmo argued that although, the PIB makes the offer of money to oil-bearing communities on one hand, it takes it away on the other. “The PIB criminalises communities when it says that if oil facilities are tampered with then the communities, local government areas, and states would pay. Communities are not the policemen of oil facilities. The PIB speaks the old language of subsisting laws that free IOCs of responsibility where facilities are interfered with by third parties. That has made the claim of sabotage the favourite refrain of the oil companies even before incidents are investigated. The PIB fell into the same anti-people trap,” he explained.

Bassey insisted that what Nigeria needs to do right now is to “massively increase oil revenues by halting oil theft. We are not talking about poor villagers scooping crude oil in buckets and jerry cans. Those also need to be stopped. We are talking about the industrial-scale oil theft going on in the oil sector. The official figure bandied by the Ministry of Finance as well as the National Assembly is that 400,000 barrels of crude oil are stolen everyday,” he said As for local operators, Bassey and other experts and stakeholders said the ability of local operators to hold their own would depend, to a very large extent, on better collaboration, better host community management, proper valuation and raising smart financing. They also require huge investment in knowledge, research and development (R&D).

Mutiu Sunmonu, Managing Director of SPDC, said the divestment of his company’s assets was a deliberate measure to encourage indigenous participation in the upstream oil and gas industry. His words: “We want to create a new set of indigenous players in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry within the next 10 to 20 years from now, while the IOCs concentrate on more difficult issues and also allow us focus on material oil and gas fields.” The divestments are seen by some industry watchers as representing the single largest opportunity for Nigerian operators with the requisite expertise and capital to emerge as major upstream players.

The companies’ claim that they bought the block from the state, not Malabu, is disingenuous, says Mr Mayne of Global Witness. It is also contradicted by Nigeria’s attorney-general, Mohammed Bello Adoke, who told a parliamentary committee last July that the companies “agreed to pay Malabu”, with the government acting as an “obligor” and “facilitator.”

The EFCC’s report states: “Investigations conducted so far reveal a cloudy scene associated with fraudulent dealings. A prima facie case of conspiracy, breach of trust, theft anmd [sic] money laundering can be established against some real and artificial persons.” Officially, the EFCC’s investigation is still open, but a source familiar with it says that its sleuths have been discouraged by higher-ups from moving forward. However, other countries’ fraudbusters have taken an interest. At least one of the parties involved in the oil-block sale has been contacted by America’s Department of Justice.

The saga is a striking example of an ethical dilemma that is growing more acute for international oil companies. They are desperate to replace their shrinking reserves with new finds, but many of the most attractive fields are in unstable or poorly governed places.

Mr Hughes argues that when foreign companies turn a blind eye to questionable aspects of a deal, it can sometimes benefit developing countries with natural resources. The publicly traded oil majors are, on balance, a force for good, raising overall standards of behaviour by trying to operate as cleanly as possible in most circumstances, he says; better that than leaving the field to less scrupulous operators.

Global Witness prefers to see the OPL245 affair as “a lesson in corruption” that demonstrates how important it is for rich-world governments to press on with transparency initiatives

The case also broadens the recourse for victims of human rights abuse by American corporations, who can seek redress in US courts under the aiding-and-abetting theory used in Bowoto v. Chevron Corp. that a corporation can be held liable as a third party.

The ATS is a US law that lets foreign citizens bring claims to US courts for damages done outside of the country. Claims are rarely upheld however, because judges have narrowly interpreted how the ATS is applied. This happened in a 1993 class action suit against Chevron and subsidiary Texaco, representing some 30,000 residents in the Amazon according to Amnesty International. The case was dropped by the US courts and palmed off to Ecuador where it is still ongoing. Other corporations domestically unscathed after US courts dismissed ATS claims include Talisman Energy Inc., the Southern Peru Copper Corporation and Coca-Cola.

At trial the District Court judge found a corporation is not an individual and can therefore not be sued under the TVPA. ‘This is significant. Most of the important legal precedents in this case have already been set … this is the only rule of law question [in the appeal].’ The TVPA is a civil law that lets citizens file a suit against another party that, acting for a foreign nation, commits torture or extrajudicial killing. In Bowoto v. Chevron Corp. the TVPA claim was thrown out. The word ‘individual’, according to the trial judge, does not describe the multinational Chevron.

But Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action and chair of Friends of the Earth International said the company had not changed and were still not doing enough to help local people in the Niger Delta. "Internationally they polish their image. The claims they make in the international areas, do not stand scrutiny on the ground."