United States Department of Justice says a US federal court has sentenced a former senior official of NNPC Limited to more than seven years in prison over his role in a multi-million-dollar oil bribery scheme.
Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, 58, a former general manager in the upstream division of Nigeria’s national oil company, was sentenced to 87 months’ imprisonment for receiving a $2.1 million bribe tied to the allocation of oil drilling rights in Nigeria.
Okoronkwo, a dual citizen of Nigeria and the United States, was convicted over a payment made by Addax Petroleum, a subsidiary of China’s state-owned energy giant Sinopec.
In a statement released on Monday, February 23, the Justice Department said the trial judge, John F. Walter, also ordered Okoronkwo to pay $923,824 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and to forfeit assets connected to the proceeds of the crime.
“Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo, 58, a.k.a. ‘Pollie,’ of Rancho Cucamonga, was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison,” the statement said. “The court also ordered him to forfeit $1,039,997, the net proceeds from the sale of a home involved in laundering the bribe money.”
Prosecutors said a jury in August 2025 found Okoronkwo guilty of three counts of transactional money laundering, one count of tax evasion and one count of obstruction of justice following a four-day trial.
According to court records, Okoronkwo abused his position by accepting a $2.1 million payment from Addax Petroleum in October 2015. The money was wired into the trust account of his Los Angeles law firm and falsely labelled as consultancy fees.
Investigators, however, determined the transfer was a bribe intended to secure favourable drilling rights in Nigeria. Prosecutors further alleged that Addax executives falsified internal records to disguise the payment, dismissed staff who raised concerns and misled company auditors.
Nearly $1 million of the bribe was used as a down payment on a home in Valencia, California, which Okoronkwo later sold. He also failed to report the illicit income on his 2015 tax return.
In October 2025, the court approved the government’s application to forfeit the Valencia property as part of the case.
