Exposing the Puerile and Bunkum Tales in NNPC’s Reply to General Buhari

The purported Reply of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to the statement made by the All Progressives Congress (APC), Presidential Candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari after his victory at the Presidential National Convention in Lagos two days ago that the NNPC has two accounts is impetuous, thoughtless, impertinent and a mere farrago of words.

READ: NNPC Replies Buhari, Says It Does not Keep Two Account Books

It is a notorious fact that the NNPC under the supervision of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke (who by Statute is the Chairman of NNPC) has become a cesspool of corruption, graft and a bastion of mismanagement of unimaginable proportion so much so that Nigerians are totally kept in the dark on how much accrues to the country from the sale of crude oil for the past six years!

It is also an incontrovertible fact that the NNPC under Mrs. Madueke and President Good luck Jonathan has become a law unto itself to the extent that the NNPC bluntly refused, failed and or neglected to remit the sum of $48 Billion realised from the sale of crude oil for nearly two years to the Federation Accounts as required and laid down by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), that all revenue accruing to the country must be paid into the Federation Account.

After the scandal was blown open by the then Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi Lamido (as he then was) and an inquiry was constituted by the Senate Committee on Finance the NNPC made itself a laughing stock when it was unable to show that the allegation made by Lamido Sanusi Lamido was baseless and gave conflicting and contradictory answers to very clear questions posed to it by members of the Committee.

The subtle reference or allusion by the NNPC to the false, malicious and baseless allegation that $2.8 Billon allegedly missed when General Muhammadu Bello was Chief Executive Officer/Chairman of the NNPC in the late 1970s in a frenzied but futile bid to get back atGeneral Buhari is puerile, petty, mischievous and of no moment.

It is the height of infantilism (characteristic of the Jonathan’s regime) to try to make an issue of what is as dead as dodo and no amount of hysteria as shown in the reply of the NNPC can resurrect a dead issue.

The allegation that $2.8 billion was missing from the account of the NNPC and diverted to a private account in Midland Bank, London, was the subject of a Judicial Commission of Inquiry on Crude Oil Sales appointed by the then President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Alhaji Usman Shehu Shagari on the 16th April 1980, in a national broadcast on Radio and Television under the Chairmanship of a distinguished and eminent jurist of no mean repute, Honourable Justice Ayo Gabriel Irikefe (OFR) (CON) (GCON) (he later became the Honourable Chief Justice of the Federation of Nigeria). The Commission found that the allegation was false and completely baseless.

The Commission found that the all monies that accrued to NNPC were properly accounted for. It also found that no $ 2.8 Billion was missing and no money was diverted to a private account in the Mid Lank, London in the first place. The Commission completely and totally exonerated General Muhammadu Buhari and gave him a clean bill to establish the point that the General Buhari is squeaky clean, honest, upright and an embodiment of integrity and patriotism (unlike many public servants of his generation).

The eminent Professor Tam David-West in his recent seminal essay “Buhari: The Politics of Age” dismissed the allegation of the missing $2.5 billion as “poppycock” thus:
“$2.8 Billion Poppycock:

Totally False. Mere gossip and rumour. Unqualified tommyrot. The Honourable Mr. Justice Ayo Irikefe’s Judicial Commission of Inquiry. (Judicial! Yes) White Paper: No such money was ever missing. Fabrication”.

The NNPC should tell us how much it has realised from the sale of crude oil rather than getting back at General Buhari by exhuming what has become res judicata (rested).
OKOI OBONO-OBLA

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