05 January 2015, Abuja — Theophilus Danjuma, a retired Army general, and former defence minister, is one of Nigeria’s richest personalities, courtesy of his ownership of one of Nigeria’s most lucrative oil blocs and a money-spinning shipping firm.
The retired general is a long time user of offshore entities, and the Mossac Fonseca files have now exposed another of his companies – Eastcoast Investments Inc – which he incorporated in Nassau, in the Bahamas, on March 25, 1997.
At inception, Mr. Danjuma and a certain Colin Marcel Dixon were directors of the company.
It was learnt that the general formed the company to enable him to do business with Scancem International of Norway when the later decided to expand its involvement in Africa to include a project in Nigeria.
But the company soon became embroiled in a messy bribery scandal, with Scancem, according to court papers, later buying out Eastcoast Investment from the project on December 1, 2003.
It was later determined that “the money went mainly to another account, Eastcoast Investment had, to General T.Y. Danjuma and a certain The Volta Company”.
As the controversy raged, Mr. Danjuma resigned as director of the company, but we did not sight any document indicating that he transferred his shareholding to anyone.