Yes...We are still on the Oil Thieves Issue ....until they return monies looted!
The
United States of America has handed over the names of Nigerian oil
thieves to President Muhammadu Buhari, a member of the President’s
entourage during last week’s visit to the US confided in The Punch on
Tuesday.
“I can
tell you that the President already has the list of names of the people
engaging in the stealing of Nigeria’s oil. The list, when released by
the President, will shock Nigerians. But let’s wait and see first,” the
source said.
The
source said Buhari was taken aback when he saw the names on the list and
that the list given to the President by the US might compel him to
probe the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
A Presidency source also confirmed that Buhari had such a list but that “the President has been keeping the list to himself.”
The
source said the US gave Buhari two separate lists – one listing the
names of top government officials who have been stealing the country’s
oil, using their high offices to perpetrate the stealing; and the other
containing the names of illegal oil bunkerers.
The
President had said last week that some ministers in the cabinet of
Jonathan were stealing as much as 250,000 barrels of Nigeria’s crude
daily.
The
Presidency source, who spoke to a Punch correspondent on condition of
anonymity, said Buhari had vowed that those whose names appeared on the
list would not go scot-free.
“The
President will probe all of them and make sure they return whatever
fortune they had made from their thievery,” the source said.
The
source said the President was already tinkering with the idea of
constituting a panel to investigate those on the list with a view to
arriving at how to deal with them based on the findings of the
committee.
However,
it was gathered that, unlike the usual probe panels, the President
would likely set up a special security team to handle the probe.
The
Punch learnt that the names on the list of oil thieves are a mixture of
highly placed government officials, and retired and serving military
officers.
Meanwhile,
the All Progressives Congress said on Tuesday that it supported the
probe of the Jonathan administration by Buhari in the light of
mind-boggling corruption that had been uncovered by the Federal
Government.
The APC
said billions of dollars had been skimmed off by
“pathologically-corrupt public officials” in the oil sector alone,
wondering how the government of the day could meet its obligations to
the citizens if it refused to recover the huge funds taken away by
thieving officials
Lai
Mohammed’s statement read, ‘‘It is an irony that those who are
suggesting that the Buhari administration should turn a blind eye to the
incomprehensible looting are the same ones accusing the government of
not doing anything.
“It is
even a cruel irony that the same party that presided over what is fast
emerging as the worst governance in the history of our country is the
same one that is daily bad-mouthing an administration that is cleaning
up its mess.
‘‘Where
does one start from? Is it the fact that the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation failed to remit N3.8tn to the Federation Account
or the mind-blowing stealing of 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day?
“Is it
the fact that the NNPC itself does not know how many bank accounts it
had or into which ones the payments for Nigerian crude are made? Could
anyone have imagined that a government minister would steal the
unprecedentedly-huge amount of US $6bn of public funds as being alleged?
‘‘How
does any sane person rationalise the fact that $1bn was unilaterally and
illegally withdrawn from the Excess Crude Account just because, as the
immediate past Minister of Finance has disclosed, the President ordered
the withdrawal? What about the billions of naira waivers recklessly
approved to dubious importers by the Jonathan
administration, Lai asked.
Culled - Punch
They
should release the names already..if the US has given them a list that
means the names are confirmed as looters,why are they still wasting
time?I hope and pray that the list is released to the public,we need to
know.
No comments:
Post a Comment