The Nation Newspaper

Tag: NNPC

  • NGF faction to meet Jonathan on state of economy

    NGF faction to meet Jonathan on state of economy

    The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) faction headed by Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, wants to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan over allegations regarding the non-remittance of some funds by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

    The forum underscored the need for such a meeting in a communiqué issued at the end of its meeting in Abuja, which ended in the early hours of Thursday.

    It would be recalled that the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, had in a letter to Jonathan, alleged that the NNPC failed to remit $49.8 billion to the Federation Account.

    Sanusi said in the letter that the sum represented the proceeds from crude oil sales between January 2012 and July 2013.

    “There is a weighty allegation contained in a recent letter to Mr. President by the CBN Governor on the state of the economy.

    “Therefore, members mandated the forum’s chairman to request for a meeting with Mr. President in order to deliberate on issues of critical national importance.

    “The meeting with the president has become necessary because the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting for November, planned for December 9 and 10, was shelved for undisclosed reasons,’’ it said.

    The forum also noted that the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting, scheduled for December 12, where such issues could have been discussed, was also postponed indefinitely.

    It noted that the NEC meeting had not been convened in the last four months.

    However, the forum condoled with the government and people of South Africa over the death of its former president, Dr. Nelson Mandela.

    It noted that Mandela left a legacy of quality and selfless leadership which was worthy of emulation.

    The forum also remembered the late Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State, who died a year ago.

    It said that it would identify with the Yakowa family during the memorial event which would be organised by the family.

    Meanwhile, the NNPC has rejected the CBN governor’s allegation over the unremitted funds, saying that the allegation was borne out of his misunderstanding of the workings of the oil and gas industry.

    The NNPC said the misunderstanding was further compounded by the modalities for remitting crude oil sales revenue into the Federation Account.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the NGF meeting was attended by the governors of Borno, Lagos, Ekiti, Kwara, Adamawa, Zamfara, River and Osun states.

    The deputy governors of Oyo and Jigawa States also attended the meeting.

     

  • Oil crisis (3)

    Oil crisis (3)

    •It is time to redefine the status and operations of a corporation that manages the nation’s cash cow

    IT is 36 years since the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was established. Apparently concerned that the processes involved in prospecting, extracting and sale of oil, the mainstay of the Nigerian economy were fully controlled by foreign firms and experts, the Federal Military Government established the NNPC, following the merger of the erstwhile Nigerian National Oil Corporation and the Federal Ministry of Mines and Power. Today, the status of the resulting organisation is unknown. Is the NNPC a rent collection company, a corporation or a mere record keeper for the sector? In none of these roles is it efficient, transparent or effective. Its inefficiency has robbed the nation of billions of dollars in oil revenue over the years.

    The accounting system is opaque, deliberately so to prevent the public from asking the necessary questions, and the structure clumsy. This must change as we move into a new year and set to mark the second anniversary of the Great Uprising of January 2012.

    Incidentally, the group managing director of the corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, had said last month that the corporation was complying fully with provisions of the Freedom of Information Act and would do all required within the law to furnish the public with details of its operations when necessary. He said: “Long before the Freedom of Information Act came into force, the NNPC has been maintaining an open door policy which sees it volunteering information to its various publics through press releases, advertorials and presentations at different forums, including hearings at the National Assembly…

    “We have since internalised the contents of that report and as a corporation; we are ready to ensure that our actions and processes live up to public scrutiny. Under my watch as GMD, I intend to abide by this principle.”

    The facts, as we see them, do not support the GMD’s contention. Neither the state governors nor former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s (EFCC) chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, would agree. At a recent retreat of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Ribadu said of the NNPC, “Today, the NNPC is a producer, an importer, a marketer and a regulator paying to the Federal Government what it likes at any time and treating the states and local governments in Nigeria as if they have no stake in the establishment.”

    The governors have been shouting that the Federal Government just gets the corporation to pay into the Federation Account what it feels. It is accountable only to the Federal Government. On many occasions, the finance commissioners from all the states have rejected what the Federal Government chose to offer them as their shares of the federally collected revenue.

    A forensic audit of the Federation Account by KPMG in 2011 showed, for example, a gross mismanagement of the oil subsidy account. This is still generating ripples. The National Assembly that ought to keep an eye on the corporation has done no more than being a toothless bulldog. At a public hearing, the House of Representatives held that the corporation sold crude oil worth $20.9 billion, but remitted only $7 billion. It did not go beyond the disclosure.

    Similarly, the Senate reported after public hearing that the corporation could not account for N500 billion that ought to have gone to fund the SURE-P operations.

    The starting point in cleaning up activities at the NNPC is to redefine its structure. What is its relationship with the supervising ministry? As Mallam Ribadu pointed out, the states and local government areas ought to be brought into the control. This means straightening the board to accommodate this suggestion.

    Fifty-seven years after oil was discovered at Oloibiri, Nigeria cannot continue to run a prime organisation like the NNPC as coal corporations were run in Europe in the nineteenth century.

  • Oil crisis (2)

    Oil crisis (2)

    •Wasting opportunities in local refining epitomise the NNPC as waste.

    Local refining is where the corporation can add value

    Visit the “Refineries and Petrochemicals” portal, on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) website, and be amazed at the glad tidings on local refining:

    “The downstream industry in Nigeria is well established,” declares the portal’s opening sentence. “NNPC has four refineries, two in Port Harcourt (PHRC) and one each in Kaduna (KRPC) and Warri (WRPC). The refineries have a combined capacity of 445, 000 bpd (445kbpd). A comprehensive network of pipelines and depots strategically located throughout Nigeria links these refineries.”

    To be sure, the facts are mechanically correct. NNPC does have four refineries. The installed capacity of 445kbpd too is correct. Also, the comprehensive network of pipelines are there – in any case, those not yet blasted by sabotage or ruptured by old age. But the interpretation of these facts is willfully wrong, bordering on deliberate deceit.

    The claim that “the downstream industry in Nigeria is well established” is clear fiction – except “downstream” is narrowly defined without local refining (or “midstream”) activities, which would be fraudulent. With “well established downstream”, there would be no question of Nigeria, though a crude-exporting country, importing white fuel from even non-crude producing country.

    It is in the non-domestication of refining, with its tantalising spin-offs in petrochemicals, plastics and allied industries that NNPC stays legitimately indicted as a grand failure and bastion of waste. Indeed, 52 years after the country’s first refinery, that NNPC has failed to establish the Nigerian petroleum midstream is its chief failure – aside from operational and accounting opacity – for NNPC’s core vision at creation was to add value to Nigeria’s crude. That remains a dream.

    Still, NNPC’s Greenfield Refineries projects, which it has bandied since 2005, are proof the corporation has given serious thought to this core but evasive business. By that project, NNPC proposes at least three additional refineries: in Lagos, Bayelsa and Kogi states. The three were projected to add 400-550 kbpd in refined products, to the installed capacity of 445 kbpd, from the comatose local refineries.

    According to information on the NNPC website, Nigeria spends between US $12 billion and US $15 billion yearly to import refined products to meet the country’s daily consumption of petrol (35 million litres) and kerosene (10 million litres), among others, and the new refineries were meant to address this shortfall in imported fuel. With a consumption growth rate of three to five per cent, by 2016, Nigeria’s imported refined products need would hit 500-560 kbpd, thus the need for the three new refineries.

    Since 18 refinery licences granted private investors since 2002 have virtually amounted to naught, NNPC (holding minority shareholding) proposes to go into partnership with local and foreign investors, to promote investment in Nigeria’s oil midstream. The Greenfield Refineries projects were also conceived to turn Nigeria into the refining hub in West and Central Africa, from Mauritania in the North to Angola in the South.

    A grand dream, no doubt. But between conceptualisation and implementation, little seems to be happening, aside from the Dangote refinery now in the works – and 2016 is only three short years away!

    NNPC’s public perception as a black hole and the thick whiff of corruption that accompanies its image are heavy dampeners that these projects would leave the drawing board in a hurry. Then there is the choking government influence which, ab initio, drives most of the corruption. That explains the scandal of the heinous opacity in NNPC’s operations and accounting, and the widespread angst suggests NNPC is uncontrollable; and could do virtually anything with the public money at its disposal.

    With this debilitating perception grounded on hard reality, the omens are not so good for NNPC delivering a vibrant local petroleum midstream. Yet, not delivering on refineries and adding value by exporting refined products and generating thousands of jobs along the way, is tantamount to NNPC pronouncing its own irrelevance.

  • Re: What is NNPC hiding?

    SIR: In last four weeks, The Nation has written five editorials, several commentaries, features and stories about the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC, the latest of which is the editorial of Monday December 2, titled: “What Is NNPC Hiding?”

    In the editorial, The Nation made reference to the report of the Berne Declaration whose allegations are wild, baseless and completely unfounded. It will be recalled that upon the release of that report, NNPC had publicly denounced it and gave a detailed account of how government equity crude is sold. For the benefit of those who did not see that statement, the corporation had stated that it sells government equity crude to oil lifters on annual contract basis.

    The selection process is transparent and competitive and involves the publication of advertisements in both local and international media calling for Applications for Lifting of Nigerian Crude Oil on Contract Basis. That traders lift crude oil according to their contractual agreements applicable to all without exception on Free on Board (FOB) basis and all proceeds are paid directly into designated Central Bank of Nigeria Crude Oil Sales Account. Furthermore Nigerian crude oil is sold at published official selling price (OSP) which in not only benchmarked to the internationally recognized pricing institution – Platts – but is regularly subjected to critical analysis of market fundamentals and price determinants at global level. Since OSP differentials are crude stream determined, it stands to reason that they cannot be manipulated to favour an individual or group of traders as being insinuated. NNPC had also noted that at the moment there are 50 subsisting contracts none of which has a monopoly or exclusive right to lift any quantity of Nigerian crude oil.

    As the editorial noted, the House of Representatives has constituted an ad hoc committee to investigate the allegations in the Berne Report. What we expected The Nation to do was to wait for the outcome of the investigation before indicting the corporation if it is found culpable.

    In a failed attempt to make a case against the NNPC, the editorial claimed that the NNPC failed to remit “$13.9 billion representing the difference between $20.9 billion said to have been realized from oil sales between January and August 2013, as against the $7 billion actually remitted to the Federation Account during the period.’’

    The editorial also alleged that the NNPC routinely defies bodies like the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee. But this is not true! This is aimed at creating a negative public perception about the corporation. NNPC has honoured invitations by committees of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Where, due to prior commitments it is unable to go, it has always informed the committees in advance.

    On the alleged differentials in money paid into the Federation Account, what the editorial failed to say was that the figures quoted emanated from the NNPC and were given to members of the House Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) when they came to the NNPC on oversight duties. It might interest Nigerians to know that revenue from crude oil comes from various sources: crude oil sales proceeds, royalty and Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT). These are paid into various accounts of the federation with the Central Bank of Nigeria, by the various agencies responsible for handling oil matters. It is the sum total of all these monies that make up the $20.9 billion. NNPC had explained this process to members of the committee who were satisfied with the explanation.

    Again, since the editorial acknowledged that the House of Representatives has set up a committee to investigate the differentials, we expected The Nation to wait for the findings of the committee.

    Once again, we wish to stress that the NNPC has nothing to hide. The current management of the corporation has been working assiduously to change public misperception about the corporation. And no amount of blackmail would distract it from its objective of making NNPC a global national oil company.

     

    • Adamu Gwazuwang,

    Abuja

     

  • NNPC and politicisation of kerosine distribution

    It is not for nothing that the media is notably referred to as the Fourth Estate of the Realm. The other three Estates being the Executive, the legislature and the judiciary arms of Government.

    The media is the fourth and most strategic of the estates, to the extent that democracy and its successes or failure defends largely on the effectiveness and sense of responsibility and fairness with which the media holds the other estates accountable to the people. The framers of the constitution certainly did not intend that the Fourth Estate will be the problem other than its gate keeping role.

    Today, the Nigeria media has played significant and very notable roles in ensuring that our nation’s hard won democracy is not only jealously guarded and protected but nurtured. It is therefore in the vanguard of a citizens ‘army’ that must seek, identity and terminate all anti democratic practices wherever they rear their heads in the polity. It is indeed a herculean task.

    The media is consequently guarded by certain golden rules that remain sacrosanct and uncompromising. The first is that “News is sacred and opinion is free”, (Charles Scott of the Guardian). The other is that all report must entertain the input of all affected parties (Fairness). The media is not a court meant to try citizens. It is the court of public opinion where citizens are assisted to informed opinion after getting all the facts as presented by the media.

    Unfortunately this modest and universal ideal has not been so in the past few years in Nigeria where the media has clearly sought to become the accuser and the judge.

    No example best illustrates this claim than recent publications by some leading national dailies in which unwholesome and bogus claims headlined, “How subsidy graft cause kerosine scarcity” and “The kerosine subsidy scam” have been fed the reading public.

    Without going into the futility of the unfounded and untenable arguments presented in the stories and opinions aforementioned, suffice it to say that once an opinion writer has decided to close his or her eyes to the facts of the subject under treatment , it is the opinion so expressed that rightly becomes a scam.

    To be sure, the present leadership of the PPMC assumed office in February 2011. At the time only four depots were functional in the country namely satellite town, Mosimi, Ibadan and Ore. This is aside the depots attached to the Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt Refineries. It then became necessary to engage the services of depots to enable bridging to inactive depots especially the Northern parts of the country.

    However and not deterred by the plethora of challenges facing the new officers of PPMC at the time, they set out with uncommon focus and came up with a template to change the supply chain to all citizens of the country for good.

    The cardinal objective included but was not limited to:

    · Supply petroleum products to the domestic market at minimal operating costs

    Provide excellent customer service by efficiently transporting crude oil to the refineries and moving petroleum products to the market.

    The management of PPMC within the first year in office, recommissioned Kaduna – Suleja line, Kaduna – Kano line, Suleja – Minna line, Kaduna – Gasau and Kaduna – Jos lines. It is noteworthy that some of these depots had been unoperational and had not worked for 15 years prior to this time.

    The PPMC is unequivocal in its belief that the petroleum products subsidy on DPK benefits only the rich to the disadvantage of the average man on the street.

    Triggered by directives from the National Assembly, PPMC increased kero supply from 8millioin litres to 11million litres per day. The problem is and has always been distribution because there was ample evidence to prove that Kerosine meant for the masses was being diverted to the pharmaceutical industry. It is also a known fact that Kerosine was equally being diverted to the Aviation Industry, Road Construction and Manufacturing sector. Not least of all were the massive activities of smugglers of Kerosine across the borders. Then you had saboteurs who still mix Kerosine with Diesel for the purpose of increasing the volume of Diesel used for fueling.

    In the face of theses known facts, claims and velifications of a DPK cartel in the NNPC is not only grossly misplaced but unfounded and misrepresented falsehood.

    Since the tenure of late President Musa Yar’Adua and the confusion arising from who should pay the subsidy began, NNPC has had to bear the burden of solely sustaining DPK supply to the Nigerian market as marketers have refused to bring in the product due to the uncertainty already mentioned as to who pays the subsidy. The NNPC brings in the product with some contributions from the refineries owing to its statutory obligation to make petroleum products available nationwide.

    For the records, NNPC has supplied a total of 332,520,875 million litres of DPK from January 2011 – September 2013 to the Nigerian market.

    It must also be emphasized that the finance minister and coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonji Iweala recently alluded to the fact that the Finance Ministry has not paid subsidy on DPK to NNPC for about three years now. This should be of concern to Nigerians who must question whether the absence of subsidy payment on kerosene to NNPC is a deliberate ploy aimed at crippling the organisation.

    With the recommissioning of the Aba and Benin Depots, NNPC has been able to make DPK available through pipeline and loading from these depots to Abia, Imo and Anambra states.

    Industry experts agree that the pipelines are by far the safest, most efficient, quickest and cost effective means to distribute products especially for a country as large as Nigeria.

    The Gombe Depot is ready for commissioning as indeed loading of products is already in progress. The Aba – Enugu – Makurdi lines and their respective depots will be ready before the end of the first quarter of 2014.

    Once all pipelines are available, NNPC is well poised to pump DPK and indeed all products to the depots located in all regions of the country for so long as there is guaranteed safety of the pipelines from vandalisation. If the activities of pipeline vandals are stamped out, NNPC is in a position to pump products through its pipeline network spanning the entire country to 21 loading depots attached to various segments of the pipeline network. Non availability of pipelines due to incessant acts of vandalism is what denies the NNPC the ability to effectively distribute products hitch free nationwide.

    On the vexed issue of the pump price of DPK, it is a known fact that the NNPC does not regulate it. The Ex Depot price of DPK has been consistent at N40.90. It is the statutory duty of DPR to regulate and enforce petroleum products prices and not the NNPC.

    It must be equally emphasized that those who are licensed by DPR to sell the product buy from either IPMAN, MOMAN, Deport Owners, NNPC Retail outlets and resell at inflated and outrageous prices over and above the recommended price N50 per litre.

    From the foregoing, is the NNPC culpable or guilty of all the allegations being heaped on it by a section of the media? Only NNPC mega stations sell the product for N50 nationwide. Why then blame the NNPC for the wrong doings of others, why are other stakeholders not taken up on accountability? And what about the regulatory agencies of PPRA and DPR.

    The management of NNPC is unrelenting in its efforts and desire to deepen the growth of the LPG as an alternative source of energy for domestic household use. In partnership with an NGO, Gas to Health Initiative, the NNPC is set to raise awareness and educate its populace on the use of LP Gas which is a more efficient energy for cooking than Kerosine.

    This switch from kerosene and other biomass to LP Gas is the new trend around the globe including third world nations.

    The use of LP Gas has the added advantage of reducing subsidy on Kerosine as well as saving the environment from degradation, create wealth and enhance the health of the average Nigerian, the continuous use of kerosene as household energy is a total waste of natural resource.

    Available records confirm that LPG production in Nigeria is in excess of 3,100,000 tons per anum. Consumption has only recently risen to 200,000 tons per anum as at December 2012. Further available records show the NNPC has rehabilitated all the Butanization plants in all six geo political zones with the exception of Ilorin.

    These are facts and facts are sacred. Nigeria and Nigerians must be encouraged to join the rest of the world in the use of LP Gas and the onus is on the nation’s mass media to educate, enlighten and sensitize our people. The inventions of scams where none exist will do the country and its citizens no good.

     

    Gwazuwang, wrote from Abuja.

     

  • NNPC/Chevron roll-back malaria programme for Delta communities

    NNPC/Chevron roll-back malaria programme for Delta communities

    The effort of the NNPC/Chevron Joint Venture to eradicate malaria through the Roll Back Malaria programme has been applauded by stakeholders in Delta State.

    The commendation for the JV commitment to health development in Nigeria through its Roll Back Malaria programme in various parts of the country; especially in communities around its operations in the Niger Delta region, was described as a worthy cause.

    The company recently organised similar programme in Ogbe-Ijoh, Warri South-West Local Government Area and Koko, Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State on November 7 and 8, 2013 in partnership with Africare.

    The programme, which involved enlightenment campaign on malaria prevention, malaria testing/treatment, distribution of insecticide-treated nets and sensitisation on the use of the nets as well as indoor residual spray in different houses in the communities, aimed at providing support for malaria prevention; including health promotion activities that would significantly reduce the prevalence of the disease and benefit the population.

    The Chairman of Warri South West Local Government Area who was represented by Hon. Kingsley Esimaje, the Supervisory Councillor for Education, thanked the NNPC/Chevron Joint Venture and its partners for deploying the programme in Ogbe-Ijoh, stressing the need to eradicate malarial scourge from the society because of its devastating effects on the people; especially in the riverside areas.

    He pledged the support of the local government in ensuring the smooth implementation of the programme, even as he called on the traditional rulers and the people to support facilitators of the programme in order to achieve their objectives.

    In his remarks at the event in Koko, the chairman, Warri North Local Government Area, Evangelist David Edun, who was represented by Mr. Nelson Egbe, the Supervisory Councillor for Environment, commended the programme, stating that malaria was the most common disease in Nigeria and in Delta State.

    Edun said: “Chevron is a good company that loves and cares for the well-being of the people. We implore you to keep up the good work in Delta State and in the society in general.”

    Earlier in her opening remarks, the Country Director, Africare, Dr. Orode Doherty thanked NNPC/Chevron Joint Venture for giving the organisation the privilege to facilitate the programme in Delta State.

    She explained that Africa’s malaria projects cover the entire Niger Delta with a combined catchment population of over 21 million, adding that their activities include supporting the primary health centres with supplies to ensure prompt adequate malaria diagnosis and treatment.

    In his remarks at the events, Mr. Deji Haastrup, the General Manager, Policy Government and Public Affairs (PGPA) represented by Messrs. Trust Inimgba (PGPA Superintendent Warri) and Kunle Okegbemiro (Coordinator National Programmes) in Ogbe-Ijoh and Koko respectively, stated that the company was partnering with the Delta State government and others for the roll back malaria as part of its corporate social responsibility commitments towards supporting healthcare development in Nigeria.

    He noted that malaria was a major killer disease in Nigeria which severely affects children mostly under five years of age and pregnant women. He added that malaria was currently endemic in 99 countries, causing an estimated 219 million cases and 660,000 deaths per year; according to World Health organisation (WHO).

    He reiterated that malaria was preventable and could be eradicated, adding that Chevron has been partnering with other stakeholders since 2009 to deploy the roll-back malaria programme in various parts of the country.

  • House probes NNPC’s failure to remit $13b

    House probes NNPC’s failure to remit $13b

    State-run oil firm, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) will be investigated for allegedly failing to remit $13billion it generated from the sale of crude oil to the Federal Government between January and August this year, the House of Representatives has said.

    The House has also mandated its Committees on Petroleum Resources (Upstream and Downstream), National Planning and Finance, to summon the relevant Government Ministries and Agencies (MDAs) over dwindling oil revenues as a result of the surge in shale gas production through fracturing or fracking.

    The Committees were given four weeks.

    Of the $20billion it generated within the period under investigation, the NNPC allegedly remitted only $7billion, a trend, Chairman of Public Account Committee (PAC), Solomon Adeola said was habitual of the oil firm that has been reporting shortfalls in its remittances to the Federal Government since 2007.

    The lawmakers resolved yesterday to raise an ad hoc Committee to conduct the investigation because two key Standing Committees of the House were found to have worked at cross purposes in their investigation of the oil firm.

    The ad-hoc Committee’s investigation was to ascertain the volume and value of crude oil sales and remittances into the Federation Account from January to date and report back within four weeks.

    Haruna Manu (PDP, Taraba) who sponsored the motion said the motion was necessitated by information credited to the NNPC on the status and remittances to the Federation Account and claim that the total crude oil sales from January to August, 2013 was $20billion, whereas the NNPC remitted only $7 billion to the Federation Account.

    “A shortfall of $13billion is unaccounted for in the period of January to August 2013. From September to date, no proper accounts have been rendered by the NNPC or records kept to show the actual amount and volume of crude oil sales by the NNPC,” he said.

    Lawmakers that spoke in support of the motion were unanimous in their submission that there have been issues of accountability and arbitrary management of oil revenue by the NNPC.

    They said there was need to compel the corporation to render accounts of how much it derived from crude oil sales with the period and the actual amount it paid into the Federation Account.

  • Five arraigned for NNPC worker’s killing

    Five men were yesterday arraigned before an Abuja High Court in Apo for allegedly kidnapping and murdering a Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) official, Mr. Sylvester Emefiele.

    Emefiele, an electrical and electronics technologist attached to the NNPC’s Transformation Office, Corporate Planning and Strategy Division, was kidnapped and murdered on September 23 while on a trip to Abuja from Lagos.

    Akinlade Taiwo (41), Timothy Abidemi Lekan (30), Saidi Babatunde (47), Banjo Olaniyi (20) and Saliu Afeez (20) were arraigned on a seven-count charge of conspiracy, kidnapping, murder and armed robbery.

    Taiwo, Lekan, Babatunde and others at large allegedly hypnotised the deceased, using fetish charms “provided” by Babatunde.

    They allegedly dispossessed him of his possessions, including a laptop, three Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) cards, a camera, a mobile telephone set and N183,000.

    They allegedly tied him up with a rope in a bush at Giri, Gwagwalada Area Council, and “killed” him by “hitting” him with a sledge hammer.

    Olaniyi and Afeez were accused of receiving the deceased’s stolen phone from Taiwo and Lekan.

    The accused pleaded not guilty to the charges.

    The prosecutor, Oloye Torugbene, objected to an attempt by a defence lawyer, Olaniyi Oyinloye, to move the bail application for Olaniyi.

    Torugbene said he was served with the bail application the day before and needed time to respond.

    Justice O. A. Musa fixed January 30 for hearing of the bail applications and remanded the accused in Kuje prison.

  • Very apt

    Very apt

    •Berne Declaration is right: NNPC is the most opaque national oil company on the planet

    A SWISS non-governmental advocacy group, the Berne Declaration, has turned in a scathing indictment on the activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The report entitled, ‘Swiss traders’ opaque deals in Nigeria’ simply described the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as “the greatest fraud Africa had ever known”.

    The group would further add: “the all-powerful national company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, categorised as the most opaque national oil company on the planet, itself is evidence of Nigeria’s ‘resource curse’ at work”.

    Nothing, in the view of this newspaper makes the description as anything less than apt. Most Nigerians would probably accept it as most fitting for the corporation known for shady practices. The description is of course based on the specific findings of criminal collusion between the NNPC and local band of accomplices working in cahoots with a foreign syndicate. For this latest report, Nigeria ought to consider itself in debt to the Swiss advocacy group for helping to trace the intricate web of organised fraud, and for lifting the veil off the activities of the triumvirate of NNPC, Vitol and Trafigura –two Switzerland-based oil traders registered in Bermuda, and seven unnamed Nigerian oil importers behind what is arguably the biggest scam of all time.

    As with the typical Nigerian story of sleaze which borders on the fairy tale, the crux of the matter is that the two Swiss traders, with their seven local oil importer-accomplices allegedly used offshore subsidiaries described as ‘letterbox companies’ to defraud the country of over $6.8billion in subsidy payments between 2009 and 2011.

    This, according to the report, happened because Vitol and Trafigura enjoyed pre-eminent place among the leading traders in Nigeria’s oil, cornering as much as 36 percent of NNPC’s market share under a process that is less than transparent. On this, the Berne Declaration would note: “the Swiss traders do not acquire this crude oil based on public and transparent calls for tender… each year the NNPC grants the allocations of exports under obscure conditions and on the basis of criteria that are unknown outside the restricted circle of the decision makers.”

    Worse is that the “exclusive” relationship also guaranteed the Swiss firms hefty price discount on Nigeria’s oil. With NNPC refineries in abysmal states, and with the corporation known to retain crude allocation for the refineries as if they were operating at full capacity, the excess merely goes to feed its partnership via the dubious discretion of either selling the excess to them or their local accomplices through their fraudulent subsidiaries in Switzerland at lower prices, or as it is often the case, in exchange for refined petroleum products in shady swap contracts. Whichever way it goes, the Nigerian accomplices in crime are guaranteed their share from the fraud through the offshore subsidiaries created specifically for the purpose.

    There were of course the usual scams of ship-to-ship transfer of crude oil to create untraceable paperwork, payment of subsidy money to non-existing importers, and prevalent practice of partnering with politically exposed fraudsters in oil trade –all of these duly highlighted in the report, as if to buoy the image of an outlaw, anything-goes national oil corporation that Nigerians have come to know.

    We welcome the plan by the House of Representatives to investigate the report. As always, the million-dollar question is the extent that the House probe can go. Merely by the body of work already done by the Swiss group, the issues begging for resolution would appear straightforward. One is the benefit of knowing why the nation’s oil is sold through third parties when it could be sold directly to buyers; the other, related, is the authority behind the sale of the crude at discounted prices. As for the mystery promoters of the seven off-shore companies, Nigerians are interested in knowing them.

     

  • Very apt

    Very apt

    A SWISS non-governmental advocacy group, the Berne Declaration, has turned in a scathing indictment on the activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The report entitled, ‘Swiss traders’ opaque deals in Nigeria’ simply described the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as “the greatest fraud Africa had ever known”.

    The group would further add: “the all-powerful national company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, categorised as the most opaque national oil company on the planet, itself is evidence of Nigeria’s ‘resource curse’ at work”.

    Nothing, in the view of this newspaper makes the description as anything less than apt. Most Nigerians would probably accept it as most fitting for the corporation known for shady practices. The description is of course based on the specific findings of criminal collusion between the NNPC and local band of accomplices working in cahoots with a foreign syndicate. For this latest report, Nigeria ought to consider itself in debt to the Swiss advocacy group for helping to trace the intricate web of organised fraud, and for lifting the veil off the activities of the triumvirate of NNPC, Vitol and Trafigura –two Switzerland-based oil traders registered in Bermuda, and seven unnamed Nigerian oil importers behind what is arguably the biggest scam of all time.

    As with the typical Nigerian story of sleaze which borders on the fairy tale, the crux of the matter is that the two Swiss traders, with their seven local oil importer-accomplices allegedly used offshore subsidiaries described as ‘letterbox companies’ to defraud the country of over $6.8billion in subsidy payments between 2009 and 2011.

    This, according to the report, happened because Vitol and Trafigura enjoyed pre-eminent place among the leading traders in Nigeria’s oil, cornering as much as 36 percent of NNPC’s market share under a process that is less than transparent. On this, the Berne Declaration would note: “the Swiss traders do not acquire this crude oil based on public and transparent calls for tender… each year the NNPC grants the allocations of exports under obscure conditions and on the basis of criteria that are unknown outside the restricted circle of the decision makers.”

    Worse is that the “exclusive” relationship also guaranteed the Swiss firms hefty price discount on Nigeria’s oil. With NNPC refineries in abysmal states, and with the corporation known to retain crude allocation for the refineries as if they were operating at full capacity, the excess merely goes to feed its partnership via the dubious discretion of either selling the excess to them or their local accomplices through their fraudulent subsidiaries in Switzerland at lower prices, or as it is often the case, in exchange for refined petroleum products in shady swap contracts. Whichever way it goes, the Nigerian accomplices in crime are guaranteed their share from the fraud through the offshore subsidiaries created specifically for the purpose.

    There were of course the usual scams of ship-to-ship transfer of crude oil to create untraceable paperwork, payment of subsidy money to non-existing importers, and prevalent practice of partnering with politically exposed fraudsters in oil trade –all of these duly highlighted in the report, as if to buoy the image of an outlaw, anything-goes national oil corporation that Nigerians have come to know.

    We welcome the plan by the House of Representatives to investigate the report. As always, the million-dollar question is the extent that the House probe can go. Merely by the body of work already done by the Swiss group, the issues begging for resolution would appear straightforward. One is the benefit of knowing why the nation’s oil is sold through third parties when it could be sold directly to buyers; the other, related, is the authority behind the sale of the crude at discounted prices. As for the mystery promoters of the seven off-shore companies, Nigerians are interested in knowing them.