United States Gave Pres. Buhari Names Of Nigerian Oil Thieves

The United States of America has handed over the names of Nigerian oil thieves to President Muhammadu Buhari, a member of the President’s entourage during last week’s visit to the US confided in The punch on Tuesday. “I can tell you that the President already has the list of names of the people engaging in the stealing of Nigeria’s oil. The list, when released by the President, will shock Nigerians. But let’s wait and see first,” the source said. The source said Buhari was taken aback when he saw the names on the list and that the list given to the President by the US might compel him to probe the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan. A Presidency source also confirmed that Buhari had such a list but that “the President has been keeping the list to himself.” The source, who told our correspondent about the list in the President’s possession, said the US gave Buhari two separate lists – one listing the names of top government officials who have been stealing the country’s oil, using their high offices to perpetrate the stealing; and the other containing the names of illegal oil bunkerers. The President had said last week that some ministers in the cabinet of Jonathan were stealing as much as 250,000 barrels of Nigeria’s crude daily. The Presidency source, who spoke to one of our correspondents on condition of anonymity, said Buhari had vowed that those whose names appeared on the list would not go scot-free. “The President will probe all of them and make sure they return whatever fortune they had made from their thievery,” the source said. The source said the President was already tinkering with the idea of constituting a panel to investigate those on the list with a view to arriving at how to deal with them based on the findings of the committee. However, it was gathered that, unlike the usual probe panels, the President would likely set up a special security team to handle the probe. The PUNCH learnt that the names on the list of oil thieves are a mixture of highly placed government officials, and retired and serving military officers. Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress said on Tuesday that it supported the probe of the Jonathan administration by Buhari in the light of mind-boggling corruption that had been uncovered by the Federal Government. “Some people have insinuated that the Buhari administration should ignore the massive looting of our patrimony and move on. We say no responsible government can afford to do that, because it will amount to endorsing corruption and impunity,’’ the party said in a statement issued in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed. The APC said billions of dollars had been skimmed off by “pathologically-corrupt public officials” in the oil sector alone, wondering how the government of the day could meet its obligations to the citizens if it refused to recover the huge funds taken away by thieving officials Mohammed’s statement read, ‘‘It is an irony that those who are suggesting that the Buhari administration should turn a blind eye to the incomprehensible looting are the same ones accusing the government of not doing anything. “It is even a cruel irony that the same party that presided over what is fast emerging as the worst governance in the history of our country is the same one that is daily bad-mouthing an administration that is cleaning up its mess. ‘‘Where does one start from? Is it the fact that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation failed to remit N3.8tn to the Federation Account or the mind-blowing stealing of 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day? “Is it the fact that the NNPC itself does not know how many bank accounts it had or into which ones the payments for Nigerian crude are made? Could anyone have imagined that a government minister would steal the unprecedentedly-huge amount of US $6bn of public funds as being alleged? ‘‘How does any sane person rationalise the fact that $1bn was unilaterally and illegally withdrawn from the Excess Crude Account just because, as the immediate past Minister of Finance has disclosed, the President ordered the withdrawal? What about the billions of naira waivers recklessly approved to dubious importers by the Jonathan administration?” It added, ‘‘Is it not clear now that the stealing and the profligacy – more than anything else, including the fall in oil price – helped to drastically reduce the monthly allocation from the Federation Account from about N800bn to about N400bn , thus pauperising the states and the local governments, and by extension the citizenry?


http://www.clemmag.com/united-states-gave-pres-buhari-names-of-nigerian-oil-thieves/