A United States court has convicted Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian-American and former general manager at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), for taking a $2.1 million bribe from Addax Petroleum.
Okoronkwo, who once led NNPC’s upstream division, was found guilty of money laundering, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice. The verdict followed a four-day trial in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors said that in October 2015, Addax Petroleum, a Swiss arm of China’s Sinopec, wired $2.1 million to Okoronkwo’s Los Angeles law firm. The payment was labelled “consultancy fees,” but investigators proved it was a bribe for favourable drilling rights in Nigeria.
Court records showed that Addax executives falsified documents, misled auditors, and sacked employees who raised questions about the transfer. The engagement letter with Okoronkwo’s firm carried a fake Lagos address to hide the deal.
Okoronkwo then used nearly $1 million as a down payment on a house in Valencia, California. He failed to declare the illicit income in his 2015 tax returns.
By June 2022, he lied to US federal agents, claiming the funds were client monies and denying that they were used for property.
Addax’s Fear of Losing Billions
According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Addax feared it could lose billions of dollars in potential profits if its Nigerian drilling rights were blocked. The $2.1 million bribe was meant to secure those interests.
Sentencing is fixed for December 1. Okoronkwo faces up to 10 years in prison for each money laundering charge, another 10 years for obstruction of justice, and five years for tax evasion.
The case is another indictment of Nigeria’s oil sector, where allegations of corruption have dogged global deals for decades. Advocates like Transparency International have long warned that bribery in oil contracts distorts resource governance and cheats citizens of fair revenue.
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