The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Hajiya Zainab Shamsuna-Ahmed, on Wednesday said between 2009 and 2012 alone, about 160 million barrels of crude oil, valued at $13.7bn were stolen under the watch of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
The NEITI boss, who called on the Federal Government to privatise the refineries, stated this during a courtesy call on Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State at Sir Kashim Ibrahim Government House, Kaduna, on Wednesday.
El-Rufai is among the four governors, appointed by the National Economic Council to scrutinise the accounts of the NNPC and the Excess Crude Account managed by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Part of the terms of reference was to unravel the N3.8tr allegedly not remitted to the Federation Account by the national oil giant between 2012 and May, 2015 as well as $2.1bn said to have been deducted from the Excess Crude Account without the knowledge of the governors.
e: 11.0pt;">Governors of Akwa-Ibom, Edo and Gombe states are members of the panel.
Shamsuna-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.”
Meanwhile, el-Rufai alleged that since he called for the scrapping of NNPC, the corporation has being sponsoring articles in the media to attack him, saying he would continue to fight till NNPC was killed.
He added that the corporation would be made to pay all the money it owed before its final death.
El-Rufai said, “NNPC has become a monster and too powerful. I will continue to fight NNPC till it dies for Nigeria to survive. Its either Nigerians kill NNPC or NNPC will kill Nigeria.
“Since I called for the death of NNPC, the corporation sponsored articles attacking me, but I am telling them my skin is ticker than that of an elephant.
“The NNPC can’t bribe us, the four governors.”
