Oil Worth $13.7bn Stolen Under NNPC, Says NEITI

The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Hajiya Zainab Shamsuna-Ahmed, on Wednesday said between 2009 and 2012, about 160 million barrels of oil valued at $13.7bn was stolen under the watch of the national oil giant, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

She also said that subsidy payment from 2005 to 2012 indicated that $11.63bn had been paid to the NNPC but that “there is no evidence of the money being remitted to the federation account.”

The NEITI boss, who called on the Federal Government to privatize the refineries, stated this during a courtesy call on Governor Nasir el-Rufai, at Sir Kashim Ibrahim Government House, Kaduna, on Wednesday.

El-Rufai is among the four governors appointed by the National Economic Council to scrutinise the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Excess Crude Account managed by the administration of Goodluck Jonathan.

Part of the terms of reference was to unravel the N3.8trn not remitted to the Federation Account by the national oil giant between 2012 and May 2015, as well as $2.1bn said to have been deducted from the Excess Crude Account.

Governors of Akwa-Ibom, Edo and Gombe states were members of the team.

Hajiya Ahmed said, “Crude product swap of $866m was lost from 2009 to 2011 and $8243m in 2012. Total amount expended in subsidy payment from 2005 to 2012 as captured $11.63bn have been paid to the NNPC.

However, there is no evidence that these amounts were remitted to the Federation Account,” she stated.

Meanwhile, Governor El-Rufai disclosed that since he called for the scrap of the NNPC, the corporation has been sponsoring articles in the media to attack him to fight on till NNPC will be killed.

He added that the corporation would be made to pay all monies it owed before its final death.

El-Rufai said, “NNPC has become a monster that is too powerful.

I will continue to fight NNPC till it dies for Nigeria to survive.

“It is either Nigerians kill NNPC or NNPC will kill Nigeria.

“Since, I called for the death of NNPC, the corporation has sponsored articles attacking me, but I am telling them my skin is thicker than an elephant.”(Punch)