Oil sector probe: El-Rufai gets dossier of corruption In NNPC

KADUNA State Governor Malam Nasir El-Rufai yesterday got a dossier of corruption
in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
(NEITI), Hajiya Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, handed over the dossier on the sharp
practices in the Corporation to him at the Government House in Kaduna.

El-Rufai is one of the four governors appointed by National Economic Council (NEC)
to investigate the management of the accounts of the NNPC and the Excess Crude
Account (ECA) by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The committee of four has a mandate to unravel the whereabouts of the N3.8 trillion
not remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC between 2012 and May  as
well as the $2.1bn said to have been deducted from the ECA without proper
authorisation by the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).
In her presentation yesterday on how billions of dollars of oil revenue not remitted to
the Federation Account by the NNPC, the NEITI chief said about 160 million barrels
of oil, valued at $13.7 billion, were stolen between 2009 and 2012.
Calling on the Federal Government to privatise the nation’s refineries, Hajiya Ahmed
said there was no proof that the $11.631 billion subsidy payment captured from
2005 – 2012, was remitted into the Federation Account by the Corporation.
Hajiya Ahmed said: “Crude product swap of $866m was lost from 2009 to 2011
and $82.43m in 2012. Total amount expended on subsidy payment from 2005 to
2012 as captured, $11.631m have been paid to the NNPC. However, there is no
evidence this amount was remitted to the Federation Account.”
El-Rufai alleged that the NNPC had been sponsoring media publications against him
for recommending the scrapping of the corporation.
El-Rufai had urged the Federal Government to ‘kill NNPC before it kills Nigeria’ at the
Seventh Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series in Abuja, as part of celebration
marking the 91st birthday anniversary of Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka.
The governor said yesterday: “NNPC has become a monster and 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
sponsored articles to attack me.
“But, I am telling the NNPC that my skin is thicker than an elephant. The NNPC can’t
bribe us (the four governors),” El-Rufai assured his guests.