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Despite all the colour editing, the roofs are still brown

A court in Milan is considering charges of corruption against Eni and Shell in a controversial oil deal that led to Nigeria losing an estimated $6bn.The campaign group Global Witness has calculated the OPL 245 deal in 2011 deprived Nigeria of double its annual education and healthcare budget.

Eni and Shell are accused of knowing the money they paid to Nigeria would be used for bribes.
The Italian and Anglo-Dutch energy giants deny any wrongdoing. This unfolding scandal, which is being played out in an Italian court, has involved former MI6 officers, the FBI, a former President of Nigeria, as well as current and former senior executives at the two oil companies.

The former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete, was found guilty by a court in France of money laundering and it emerged he used illicit funds to buy a speed boat and a chateau. It is also claimed he had so much cash in $100 bills that it weighed five tonnes.

Global Witness has spent years investigating the deal which gave Shell and Eni the rights to explore OPL 245, an offshore oil field in the Niger Delta. It has commissioned new analysis of the way the contract was altered in favour of the energy companies and concluded Nigeria's losses over the lifetime of the project would amount to $5.86bn, compared to terms in place before 2011.
The analysis was carried out by Resources for Development Consulting on behalf of Global Witness, as well as the NGOs HEDA, RE:Common and The Corner. The estimated losses were calculated using an oil price of $70 a barrel as a basis.

Eni has criticised the way it was calculated because it ignores the possibility that Nigeria had the right to revise the deal to claim a 50% share of the production revenues.
Deal or no deal

Campaigners say the deal should be cancelled.
"We discovered that Shell had constructed a deal that cut Nigeria out of their share of profit oil from the block," Ava Lee, a campaigner at Global Witness told the BBC's World Business Report.
"This amount of money would be enough to educate six million teachers in Nigeria. It really can't be underestimated just how big a deal this could be for a country that right now has the highest rates of extreme poverty in the world."
Nigeria is the richest economy in Africa, but despite having large resources of oil and gas millions of people are poor.

Lucrative OPL 245
It is understandable why Eni and Shell wanted to acquire the rights to develop OPL 245, because it is estimated to contain nine billion barrels of oil.
But the process of how they secured the contract is dogged by claims of corruption.
The court in Milan is weighing evidence of how a former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete, awarded ownership of OPL 245 to Malabu, a company he secretly controlled.
He is accused of paying bribes to others in the government, such as former President Goodluck Jonathan, to ensure that process went smoothly.
Shell and Eni are accused of knowing the $1.1bn they paid to Nigeria would be used for bribes, claims based on the content of emails which have since emerged.
"Looking at the emails it seems that Shell knew that the deal they were constructing was misleading but they went ahead with it anyway even though a number of Nigerian officials raised concerns about this scandalous, scandalous deal," says Ava Lee from Global Witness.
No wrongdoing

The Anglo-Dutch and Italian energy giants insist they have done nothing wrong, because they paid the money to secure the exploration rights directly to the Nigerian government.
Shell issued a statement to BBC World Business Report saying: "Since this matter is before the Tribunal of Milan it would not be appropriate for us to comment in detail. Issues that are under consideration as part of a trial process should be adjudicated in court and we do not wish to interfere with this process.
"We maintain that the settlement was a fully legal transaction and we believe the trial judges in Italy will conclude that there is no case against Shell or its former employees."

Eni has also denied any wrongdoing and told the BBC that it questions the competence of the experts commissioned by Global Witness and its "partners", as well as raising the possibility that the report by the campaign group is defamatory.
Shell accused of abuses in Nigeria
The Italian oil and gas company said "as this matter is currently before the Tribunal of Milan, we are unable to comment in detail".
In a statement it noted: "Global Witness together with its partners Corner House, HEDA Resource Centre and Re: Common had requested twice to be admitted as aggrieved parties in the Milan proceedings. On both occasions, the request was firmly denied by the Tribunal of Milan."
Eni also said it "continues to reject any allegation of impropriety or irregularity in connection with this transaction".

Biggest ever corruption case
Campaigners believe this is a landmark case and the outcome of the trial in Milan will cause an earthquake to reverberate through the oil and gas industry.
Nick Hildyard of the Corner House wonders if investors are comfortable. "Fund managers should be alarmed at this brazen dishonesty," he said.
Nigeria's leader is being encouraged to intervene by Olanrewaju Suraju, from HEDA. "President Buhari should reject any deal," he said.

The contrast between the way Italy deals with migrants and the actions of one of the nation's biggest companies has been raised by Antonio Tricarico of Re;Common.
"The Italian government is discouraging Nigerian migrants trying to reach Italy by claiming that it will help them at home, but Italy's biggest multi-national, part owned by the state, is accused of scamming billions from the Nigerian people."

The outcome of the unprecedented court case in Milan could force the oil industry to change how it conducts its business, especially in countries where corruption is rife, because more transparency about contracts and payments made would discourage fraud.

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DAKAR, Senegal – As shock continues over the fate of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, who vowed to rule until death but now finds himself in military custody, here's a look at other larger-than-life African leaders who spent years in power, then lost it.

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GAMBIA'S YAHYA JAMMEH

Jammeh took power in 1994 in a bloodless coup, ruling the tiny West African nation for more than 22 years. His regime was accused of overseeing human rights abuses to silence opponents. In a stunning turn of events, Gambians last year elected opposition coalition candidate Adama Barrow, who was forced to wait in neighboring Senegal during a weeks-long political standoff until Jammeh finally flew into exile in Equatorial Guinea with his family and close aides. Jammeh has not been heard from since.

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CONGO'S MOBUTU SESE SEKO

Mobutu seized power in a military coup in 1965, five years after the vast, mineral-rich nation gained independence from Belgium. His leadership had the support of the United States and other Western governments. After a legendary, corrupt dictatorship that lasted more than 30 years and left the country then called Zaire in shambles, he was overthrown in 1997 by Laurent Kabila. Mobutu took refuge in Morocco in 1997, where he died of prostate cancer.

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UGANDA'S IDI AMIN DADA

Idi Amin's eight-year rule was defined by the deaths of up to 300,000 people. He was famously mercurial, targeting certain ethnic groups but also journalists, lawyers and others he saw as possible opposition. Yet for more than 25 years he was never punished for bringing misery to the once-prosperous country and never expressed remorse. He sought exile in Saudi Arabia after his government was ousted in 1979. He died there in 2003 after being on life support and suffering from kidney failure.

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LIBYA'S MOAMMAR GADHAFI

At age 27, Gadhafi emerged in 1969 as leading a group of officers who overthrew the monarchy of King Idris. Gadhafi became a symbol of anti-Western defiance in a Third World recently liberated from European colonial rulers. He ruled with brutality during his nearly 42 years in power, leaving behind an oil-rich nation drained of its institutions. Rebels overwhelmed the capital in 2011 and drove him into hiding in Sirte, where he was pulled from a drainage tunnel and killed. He became the first ruler killed in the Arab Spring uprisings that swept the region.

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LIBERIA'S CHARLES TAYLOR

Former warlord Taylor was president between 1997 and 2003 and was accused of greed and savagery. The second of the country's back-to-back civil wars, which together killed more than 250,000 people, occurred under his rule. He fled to Nigeria in 2003 as part of a deal to end the war, which he had financed by trafficking in diamonds from neighboring Sierra Leone. He was extradited to face charges of crimes against humanity at a U.N.-supported Special Court for his role in fomenting conflict in Sierra Leone. In 2012 he became the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since World War II. He is serving a 50-year sentence in Britain.

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BURKINA FASO'S BLAISE COMPAORE

Compaore came to power after a bloody 1987 coup that killed the West African nation's revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara. After ruling for more than 27 years, Compaore tried to amend the constitution to seek another term in office. Faced with a popular uprising, he was forced to step down in 2014. He fled into exile and is now living as a citizen of Ivory Coast. Human rights groups want him extradited to face justice for several murders he is accused of during his reign, including that of Sankara.

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CHAD'S HISSENE HABRE

Habre's rule from 1982 to 1990 was marked by human rights abuses that eventually saw him forced from power by current President Idriss Deby. For more than 20 years, Habre lived a life of luxurious exile in Senegal until paramilitary police took him into custody. The Extraordinary African Chambers was created by the African Union and Senegal to try him for crimes committed during his presidency. In May, he was found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and sex crimes and was sentenced to life in prison. It was the first conviction of a former head of state by an African court for crimes against humanity.

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ETHIOPIA'S MENGISTU HAILE MARIAM

Mengistu Haile Mariam ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991 and is blamed for the killing of hundreds of students, intellectuals and politicians during the "Red Terror" against supposed enemies of his Soviet-backed military dictatorship. He fled a rebellion in 1991 and was taken in by Mugabe in Zimbabwe. His army had helped to train Mugabe's guerrillas in their struggle for independence from white rule. Mengistu was convicted in absentia by an Ethiopian court in 2006 of genocide and later sentenced to death, but Zimbabwe has refused to extradite him.

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