Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s
office has revealed details of mind-boggling corruption during the Jonathan era
and even called them a tip of the iceberg.
The details were published last night
in a reaction to the accusations by spin doctors of former President Goodluck
Jonathan, who claimed Osinbajo made unsubstantiated allegations about grand
corruption during the Jonathan era.
The statement by senior special
assistant on media, Laolu Akande, said the Vice President did not at anytime
accuse Jonathan in person, but only said the blatant corruption cases were
committed during his presidency.
The full statement:
WE have read reports attributed
to “a media office of former President Goodluck Jonathan”. It is clear from the
foul language of the authors that the statement could not have come from the
former President, but from the motley group of loud and rude characters whose
brief seems to be to deny all and anything said against the former PDP
government and to do so in the crassest possible language.
The alleged spokespersons of the
former President say that facts long in the public domain, some even being used
to prosecute several corruption cases are lies and that those of us in
government restating these well known facts are liars.
They accuse Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo, SAN, of lying against the former President or his government citing
their involvement in the stealing of three billion dollars, while speaking
recently at The Platform event on the 1st of May.
Just for clarity, I quote the
Vice President “Grand corruption remains the most enduring threat to our
economy. Three Billion US dollars was stolen in what was called the strategic
alliance contacts in 2013, three Nigerians were responsible, today three
billion dollars is one trillion Naira and our budget is 7trillion! ….”
Two issues emerge. First, no
mention is made of the former President.
Second, the story is not only
true, it has been in the public domain for almost three years and it is the
subject of criminal investigation and trials both here and in the UK.
The spokespersons also say that
the allegations of corruption against the PDP government are mere lies. For
clarity, the facts are laid out as follows:
As the Vice President said, $3B
was stolen in the so- called NNPC Strategic Alliance Contracts. The three
persons involved are Jide Omokore, Kola Aluko and the former Petroleum
Resources Minister Diezani Alison- Maduekwe. The companies of both Jide Omokore
and Kola Aluko lifted Nigerian crude oil and kept the proceeds. The total sums
converted is in excess of three billion dollars including royalties, taxes and
fees unpaid for the asset from which the crude was taken. The case is the
subject of a trial in Nigeria, and criminal investigation in the US and UK, and
the assets of all three individuals have been forfeited in Nigeria, the US and
the UK.
The criminal diversion and theft
of sums in excess of $2.5 billion meant for purchase of arms to prosecute the
war against Boko Haram: The first phase of the investigations revealed several
sordid details, many of the assets of culprits have been seized from them and
they are facing trial.
The release of the sum of $289m
in cash on February 25, 2015: Documents including cash vouchers indicate that
the the sum of $289,202,382 was taken from the Joint Venture (JV) Cash Call
Account No. 000-0000-11658-366 of the NNPC/NAPIMS with JP Morgan Chase Bank, New
York, USA.
N70 billion was released in parts
from the national treasury between January 8 and February 25, 2015.
In another illegal disbursement,
25th August 2014, N60B in cash in tranches of N40billion and N20billion: The
sum was not tied to any project or procurement and was then shared between two
security agencies under the supervision of the then NSA. Most of these sums
ended up in the hands of senior PDP members some of whom have returned parts of
the loot. Some are standing trial for these offenses. These facts are in the
public domain.
There was yet another set of
illegal fund withdrawals under one week between January 8and 16, 2015, where
the sum of N1.5 billion was released in three tranches of N300m, N400m and
N800m respectively. This money was released from the MEA Research Library
Account
Another document showed that N10
billion was released to the Office of the National Security Adviser by the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on September 15, 2014. The money was released in
tranches of foreign exchange of $47 million, $5 million, 4 million Euros and
1.6 million Euros. A letter from the Office of the NSA in November 2014 further
showed that the monies were released as ‘funds for special services’. This
particular release of N10B was sourced in November 2014 from a N40 Billion CBN
released funds meant for Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR. Investigators
showed that this money was released for the PDP Presidential Primaries.
Lamido Sanusi, then CBN Governor
was sacked for speaking up about the over $20billion missing from oil proceeds.
These cases of grand corruption
and open looting of public resources pauperized Nigeria and left us with little
or no savings in the years when oil was selling at 100 to 114 dollars a barrel
and we were producing 2.1 million barrels a day. When in 2015 oil prices went
even as low as between 28 and 35 dollars a barrel and oil production fell to
less than one million barrels a day we had no buffer, no savings, to tide us
through.
The amount released from CBN in
cash on a single day, ie the US$289M ( N88.1Bn) is enough to fund 244,000
N-Power graduates for a year, or pay for 1.2Billion school meals or complete
half of Lagos -Ibadan or half of Abuja -Kaduna -Kano roads.
The Vice President also made the
point that in 2014 with oil prices as high as 120 dollars per barrel, the total
capital released for Power, Works, Housing, Defence, Transport, Agriculture and
Defence were just N152Billion for the whole year.
By contrast, the Buhari
administration committed N578Bn to the same Ministries in 2016 with oil prices
as low as US$28 per barrel as part of the strategy to end the recession. The
government was able to do more with less by stopping grand corruption and
impunity.
Recently, the Minister
Coordinating the economy in that administration has written a revealing book :
Fighting Corruption is Dangerous: The Story Behind the Headlines. Who knows,
perhaps her stories too are all lies!
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