There were a number of unanswered questions that seem to have fatally undermined the prosecution.
Defence barrister Jonathan Laidlaw KC questioned why the Nigerian government had not sought to prosecute Alison-Madueke.
He said Alison-Madueke had “effectively been kept prisoner in this country for almost 11 years… unable to work, unable to travel” while the NCA had “done nothing to bring about the extradition” of the six oil men said to have paid bribes to her.
The jury was not told why they had not been charged.
The defence claimed the investigation had been compromised from the start because the NCA was denied access to the search of Alison-Madueke’s Abuja home in 2015.
They relied on work done on their behalf by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
But while the prosecution told the jury to trust how the EFCC had gathered evidence against Alison-Madueke, at the same time it advised them to disregard the commission’s evidence in relation to a co-defendant in the trial.
The defence case of Olatimbo Ayinde, the oil industry executive who was also found not guilty by the jury, was she had been working as an informant for the Nigerian authorities to expose corruption.
Ayinde, a Nigerian businesswoman with British citizenship, said she been encouraged by the west African country’s security services to “play along” with those in government who were asking her for bribes.
An EFCC investigator, who had travelled to London from Nigeria, told the court Ayinde had given “vital information that assisted the investigation”.
“Miss Ayinde’s plan was to help law enforcement and now she’s there in the dock,” said her barrister Jonathan Lennon KC who had sought unsuccessfully to have his client’s case thrown out of court.
In a statement after the verdict, Alison-Madueke said her “nightmare is over”.
She said: “For 11 long, gruelling years this case has hung over my head and has tormented me and my family. But today, the past decade of relentless and unjust vilification, condemnation and scrutiny has finally come to an end.”
