The United States of America has handed over the names of Nigerian oil thieves to President Muhammadu Buhari.
A member of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s entourage during last week’s visit to the Unites States, has exclusively confided in The PUNCH on Tuesday, that the USA has handed over the names of Nigerian oil thieves to the president.
“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 disclosed that the U.S 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 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, and unlike the usual probe panels, the President would likely set up a special security team to handle the probe.
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.
Below is a statement issued in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed..It reads;
"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?
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?
Against the background of the stunning revelations, what message will any government be sending to its citizens and indeed the global community by looking the other way, when it could still recover some of the looted funds for the benefit of the people?"
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