Lagos-based lawyer, Festus Keyamo, has asked the National assembly to probe the immediate past Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and top officials of the corporation for “massive looting of state resources in collusion with some local companies in the oil and gas sector”.
Mr. Keyamo said NNPC’s Managing Director, Tony Moneke; the Executive Director, Commercial, PPMC, Frank Amejo; Group General Manager, Crude Oil Marketing Division, Gbenga Komolafe; Former Managing Director of NPDC, and later NNPC Group Executive Director, E & P, Abiye Membere should all be probed.
The lawyer urged the legislators to beam their search light on the crude Oil Swap deals, an arrangement whereby about fifty percent (50%) of the nation’s daily quota of crude oil meant for domestic refining and consumption are given to some local companies in the oil and gas sector which then sell the products in the international market and thereafter import petroleum products, including derivatives or by-products on behalf of the NNPC and PPMC for sale and distribution in the country.
“The Offshore Processing Agreements (OPAs) involved in the allocation of the daily domestic quota of crude oil to some local companies in the oil and gas sector; the colossal fraud in both programmes have reportedly started and heightened in recent years,” he said. “The frauds occur when far less quantity of petroleum products, by-products and derivatives are imported into the country by the local companies in exchange for the crude oil allocated to them by the NNPC.”
The staggering shortfalls in the imported products are done with the active connivance, collusion and knowledge of the officials of the NNPC,” Mr. Keyamo said.
“The proceeds are, of course, subsequently shared between the NNPC officials and these local companies. In fact, it is reported that a colossal sum of about $50billion (fifty billion dollars) have been stolen by these people through these fraudulent programmes in the last few years,” he added.
The lawyer urged the lawmakers to also invite oil and gas companies including AITEO, Sahara Energy, Ontario Oil and Gas and Taleveras to assist in its probe.
