Here's how
DesertHerald is reporting it:
Mr. Babangida’s alleged theft of US$12.4 billion accruable from the
Gulf War excess crude oil sales in 1991 is dwarfed by this massive
plunder of state treasury, under Mr. Jonathan, in just under 17 months.
If the allegation that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,
NNPC, under the President Goodluck Jonathan, illegally diverted about
$50 billion oil money is eventually proven, the president would have
succeeded in setting a new Nigerian record on authority stealing.
In the company of two of his ministers – Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the
Finance Minister, and Diezani Alison-Madueke, the Petroleum Minister –
the Nigerian President may have quadrupled the previous record of
alleged stealing of public funds hitherto held by Ibrahim Babangida, who
was Head of State between 1985 – 1993.
A self-styled Military President, Mr. Babangida, 72, reportedly
siphoned US$12.4 billion accruable from the Gulf War excess crude oil
sales in 1991.
But a PREMIUM TIMES exclusive on Tuesday detailed how President
Jonathan, who is currently in South
Africa for the funeral of Nelson
Mandela, oversaw a systematic diversion of US$50 billion, money from
crude oil sales between January 2012 and July 2013.
In the report, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria’s Central Bank governor,
detailed how the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, paid
only 24 percent proceeds, within the year under review, into the
federation account, with the remaining 76 percent unaccounted for.
AN OIL WINDFALL
According to the CBN, the NNPC should have paid US$65.3 billion into
the federation account, having sold at least 594 million barrels of
crude within the period. Instead, the corporation only remitted US15.5
billion, the remaining US$49.8 billion disappearing into thin air.
Although Mr. Babangida’s involvement in the vanished Gulf War crude
oil windfall continues to elicit public anger across the nation, the
scale of the recent heist under President Jonathan’s watch makes the
stolen US$12.4 billion pale into insignificance.
On 15th January 1994, the government of then dictator, the late
General Sani Abacha, set up the Panel on the Reorganization and Reform
of Central Bank of Nigeria to probe how the US$12.4 billion was spent by
Mr. Babangida’s government.
Ten months later, the panel, chaired by renowned economist, Pius Okigbo,
submitted its findings detailing how Mr. Babangida’s regime conspired
with top CBN officials to squander the accrued billions on phantom
projects, with US$12.2 billion out of the total US$12.4 billion spent
through ‘Dedicated Accounts’ that were unavailable to government
auditors.
“Disbursements were clandestinely undertaken while the country was
openly reeling with crushing external debt overhead. These represent, no
matter the initial justification for creating the account, a gross
abuse of public trust,” Mr. Okigbo’s report had stated.
In his book, The Sink, American writer Jeffrey Robinson wrote: “Of the
$120 billion siphoned out of the Nigerian treasury into offshore
accounts by dishonest politicians, $20 billion is allegedly traceable to
IBB (as Mr. Babangida is fondly called) directly as president from 1985
to 1993.”
But even Mr. Babangida’s alleged theft of US$20 billion in his eight
years in power is dwarfed by this massive plunder of state treasury in
just under 17 months.
“Your excellency, you will recall that as far back as late 2010, I
had verbally expressed deep concern about what appeared to be huge
shortfalls in remittances to the federation account in spite of the
strong recovery in oil prices,” Mr. Sanusi wrote in his letter to
President Jonathan, expressing his frustration with the NNPC’s secrecy
with oil sales.
SOURCE: APC Fans Club via PREMIUMTIMES
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