The Federal Government, on Monday, explained that its delay in moving against the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, was because it is trying to establish the magnitude of fraud and inefficiencies the corporation, and the nation’s oil and gas industry was fraught with over the last couple of years.
Speaking in an interview on the Nigerian Television Authority’s, NTA, ‘Good Morning Nigeria,’ programme, President Muhammadu Buhari disclosed that the government is already working with some individuals that are helping it to track the destination of stolen crude oil and the accounts the proceeds are paid into.
He said, “Frankly, I read the stories too that I intend to break up the NNPC. I think the best way to go about it is to establish the fact of the magnitude of the inefficient ways the NNPC conducted itself. When we do that we will be on a higher moral ground to carry out whatever recommendations that have been made to us.”
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He maintained that the NNPC has lost track of the number of accounts belonging to it, adding that the government is discreetly working with some Nigerians to ensure that perpetrators of fraud in the oil and gas sector are brought to book.
“We have to maintain high confidentiality so that we do not put at risk, some of the Nigerians that are helping us to trace some of the destination of this stolen crude and then the account where they are being paid into instead of the federal government account.
“I do not think the NNPC knows how many accounts are outside there, which payments are being made for Nigerian crude which is really an outright theft. The money we want to intercept which have been going on for a number of years, a lot of Nigerians will not comprehend,” he explained.
Buhari lamented the fact that the crude oil swap programme has over the years been used to defraud the country, stating also that a number of operators in the oil and gas industry have displayed lack of conscience and love for the country.
He said, “These individuals have refineries all over the world. The swapping, is tied into a major killing ground for corrupt officials with an average evil to loot the country’s crude, work out how much they can bring back to us and we pay for the transportation and for the refining.
The swapping programme is such a dishonest way in which Nigeria is consistently losing on daily basis, millions of dollars. I think the people who have been operating in the industry, a lot of them have displayed lack of conscience and patriotism, and only God knows the amount of damage their actions have inflicted on Nigeria.”
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Expressing optimism that the United States and other European countries are willing to cooperate with Nigeria in repatriating funds that are proceeds of corruption and stolen crude, the President however, stated that the Federal Government is working to ensure that it complies with the laws of these countries and provide them with the needed documents that will help expedite the repatriation.
He said, “These countries are willing. I have also said that we have to comply with their system; that we have to get the document, especially the shipping documents, how we load from our terminals, their destinations. It is important to note that some of them change the crude and the destinations in the high seas and then change the account it needs to be paid into. Instead of the Federal Government account, they are paid into individual accounts.
“The cooperation we need is that once we get hold of the shipping documents and we are lucky to trace them out to the countries where they sold the crude and which account it goes into and we submit the evidence in terms of loading, in terms of payments being in accounts other than the Federal Government account.
“Once we do that, we are very willing to make sure that those accounts are frozen and the money repatriated to Nigeria. It is not an easy process, but I assure you that we are working very hard. We cannot say that we wait until everything is intact before we let you know. Whichever we are able to get in the following months or a couple of months, we will bring it out for Nigerians to know, with facts in our hands and prosecution started for those who perpetrated the unpatriotic action against Nigeria for so many years.”
