Alleged $6bn theft: Count us out – NNPC

• Oil sector probe not persecution of Diezani, others – Presidency

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation yesterday said it had no records that the sum of $6 billion was stolen from oil proceeds under the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan. This follows an allegation by Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, that an unnamed former minister stole the sum of $6 billion during Jonathan’s tenure.

Oshiomhole said this revelation was given by a United States official during President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent state visit to the country. However, Group Public Affairs Manager, NNPC, Mr Ohi Alegbe, told Sunday Telegraph on the telephone that it was wrong to assume that the alleged $6bn was stolen from the oil sector. He also said NNPC had declined to respond to attacks from Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, and Oshiomhole. “Have they confirmed that the missing money is from the oil sector? Who said so? What you read from the papers was not from the oil sector.

Who said $6 billion was embezzled in the oil sector? What facts do they have? Have they ascertained the facts and the figures? Some politicians cannot stand up and be giving figures and will expect that we will take them seriously. “If the FBI or any international agency discovers something, they would not go and spread it on the pages of paper.

They would hand over the documents to our own organs here to follow up. That is why when el-Rufai said what he said, when Oshiomhole said all he said and all that, we refused to respond. Let then set up a committee of forensic audit. We are just looking at them. Let them set up the enquiry.

Whatever they have they bring it out. The country belongs to all of us.

He that alleges must prove,” Alegbe said. NNPC’s clarification came against the backdrop of mounting allegations about the alleged mismanagement of proceeds of oil sales underJonathan. The allegations had put former Petroleum Resources Minister, Diezani Alison- Madueke, under pressure.

In the last two months since Buhari assumed office, the immediate past administration has come under serious attacks over alleged mismanagement of the nation’s resources.

Brazen acts of corruption said to have been uncovered by the new administration. Some of the allegations date back to the pre- election days when the All Progressives Congress seized every opportunity to tell the whole world that cabinet ministers and other key officials of the Jonathan administration were corruptly enriching themselves through various ways.

Looking at the spate of allegations, it has become obvious that the accusing fingers mainly point to Alison Madueke, one of the most powerful officials who served in the last administration.

Although her membership of the federal cabinet predated the Jonathan administration, a lot of Nigerians only remember her as the first female to oversee the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, a position that gave her suzerainty over the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation and the entire oil and gas sector. Some analysts have said that the focus on Madueke was not unexpected, given the strategic position of the petroleum industry as the mainstay of the Nigerian economy.

There is hardly any time in the last four decades that those who supervise the money spinning petroleum sector have not been accused of helping themselves to our common patrimony.

However, it does appear that none of the previous petroleum ministers has been confronted with allegations of corruption as grave and mind boggling as the ones Madueke has been facing in recent months. NNPC’s missing $20bn Whereas NNPC had always been perceived as a corrupt institution, the allegation that a whooping $20 billion had developed wings and flown out of the oily towers was received with disbelief.

The whistleblower was none other than the then Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, a man known for his hard stance on fiscal responsibility.

Sanusi claimed that about 80 per cent of proceeds from Nigerua’s crude oil sales were not remitted to the treasury but diverted by some persons. As at 2013 when Sanusi first raised the alarm, the amount he claimed was stolen at the NNPC was $49bn but it was later reviewed downwards to $20bn after the government of the day compelled the Ministry of Petroleum Resources , the Ministry of Finance and the CBN to conduct a joint-investigation to reconcile the accounts.

The probe moderated by the Senate saw the figure tumbling down to about $12billion and when Nigerians thought that the controversy had been laid to rest, Sanusi changed gears and insisted that at least $20 billion was still missing from oil sales. It was at this embarrassing point that the Jonathan administration could no longer tolerate it and had to wield the big stick. Sanusi was suspended from office after he was accused of “financial recklessness” in the running of the apex bank.

Thereafter, the government through the then Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala, announced the appointment of PriceWater- HouseCoopers to conduct a forensic investigation into the operations and accounts of NNPC.

When the audit report was released, it indicted the NNPC and recommended that the sum of $1.48bn be refunded by the oil corporation. Crude swap deals and oil theft There are allegations that the crude swap deals under the last administration left much to be desired. Within a few weeks of assumption of office, Buhari ordered an investigation into the crude swap deals.

Top NNPC officials were quizzed a number of times by the Department of State Security. Jonathan once admitted that as much as 300,000-400,000 barrels of crude oil were being lost daily.

This is more than 10 per cent of Nigeria’s total production and the loss in monetary terms was put at around £1bn per month. The losses have often been attributed to the inability of the security agencies to guard the pipelines.

It has also been attributed to an alleged unholy alliance between the vandals, security agencies and some officials of the NNPC. In the face of all these allegations trailing her stewardship at the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Alison-Madueke has remained largely unperturbed and has rather seized every opportunity to profess her innocence.

At a recent chat with the media executives in Abuja, she said that contrary to speculations in certain quarters, she was not jittery and had not sought the assistance of any past or current leaders in the country to grant her safe landing from the laws of the land. “I have not sought such assistance because I am not aware that I have been indicted of any crime that I will need a soft landing. Over the last four years, I have been severally and unfortunately accused and labelled in so many malicious and vindictive ways.

I have explained these things and pushed back robustly on these accusations and I have even gone to court on many of them. Yet they keep being regurgitated. “I think it is unfortunate, particularly when we are moving into a transition period and looking forward to an incoming government which is coming to take over where we have ended.

For everything that has a beginning there is an end and that is not a surprise. What is the surprise is the sort of malevolence bothering on personal malicious libel to my person during this period of time. “I do believe that I have done the best for Nigeria in this job and I have attained many firsts in the history of oil and gas especially in the reforms that we have done.

In this period of time, I have stepped on many big toes, particularly the toes of the cabals that were in the industry when we came in. I have said several times that we will open up the industry to all Nigerians, and we have, but that is not to the pleasure of certain cabals.

And I have been continuously maligned because of this. We have taken millions and in fact billions of dollars out of the hands of multinationals and their subcontractors and put them in the hands of Nigerians through the Nigerian Content.

Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians have come into the oil and gas industry because of our reforms. “Quite frankly, I think as unprecedented as it is, it does not please everybody and that cannot be helped but let us remember the unprecedented reforms that have happened in the oil industry during our time, such as major gas reforms, the Petroleum Industry Bill, which has been completely revised reformed and put into the hands of members of the National Assembly where it has languished for two years.”

According to her, some of the allegations were made because of the reforms contained in the PIB.

She said: “In that bill are all the reforms needed to tear NNPC apart, make it a National Oil company, an equity share company through transparency, accountability and responsibility and reduce corruption in the industry. We did all theses and we put them in place to reduce corruption, so for me to be tagged with various tags of corruption, $10 million jet purchases, who buys jet for $10 million dollars for goodness sake?

“And $20 billion missing money for which PWC had done a report and the $1.48 billion which is not missing, which is actually money transferred by the NNPC to NPDC which is a subsidiary and NPDC has actually started making payments under my directives. I have said during our time that there are gaps in the NNPC and I said that openly.

“But I can also say that at no time in Nigerian history in the oil and gas has the NNPC been as open and audited as it is today. It has been positioned to go forward in the industry.

It is true that the revenue profile is not sustainable. But we have done our best and the Nigerian oil and gas sector is today in a better shape than it has ever been in terms of achievements that we have recorded.”