The Whistle Was Blown, But Ignored

Two years ago, the President Muhammadu Buhari administration
adopted the Whistleblower policy as a component of the fight
against corruption. The introduction of the policy was sequel to
the deliberate refusal of the national assembly to pass the
Whistleblower Bill sponsored by some legislators in 2007. Like the
Treasury Single Account (TSA) and Bank Verification No (BVN) the
Whistleblower policy is said to have assisted the federal
government to recover huge public fund which had been cornered by a
few corrupt individuals and corporate bodies.

But apart from beating its chest for the success recorded so far
in the implementation of the TSA, BVN and Whistleblower policies
the trillions of naira which have been saved or recovered by the
federal government have not been deployed to arrest the increasing
wave of poverty in the land. However, in marking the second
anniversary of the Whistleblower policy it is pertinent to point
out that what has been recovered so far is a tip of the iceberg as
the Buhari administration has not acted on the information at its
disposal in respect of the billions of dollars being withheld from
the federation account.

On March 8, 2016, I requested the Minister of Finance to embark
on urgent and decisive measures to recover not less than $200
billion. Apart from assuring me, rather politely, that my request
was receiving attention the detailed information contained in my
letter has not been processed either by the federal ministry of
finance or federal ministry of justice. Since my letter was widely
published in the media it has generated reactions from some
quarters. With particular reference to the allegation that the
Central Bank of Nigeria gave out a bail out of $7 billion to 14
commercial banks in 2006, Professor Charles Soludo who was then the
governor of the bank, said it was not a bail out but a deposit.
Since the fund was illegally removed from the nation’s foreign
reserves without appropriation by the national assembly and placed
as a deposit in the banks it ought to be recovered together with
the accrued interests. And based on information which I had
obtained from the National Extractive Industry Transparency
Initiative (NEITI), I reported that the NNPC had withheld the sum
of $20 billion from the federation account. From the 2015 audit
exercise conducted by NEITI the figure has increased to $22 billion
and N376 billion.

In a petition which I sent to the Presidential Panel on Recovery
of Public Property last year, I accused Exxon Mobil of paying $600
million out of the $2.5 billion fixed by the Nigeria National
Petroleum Corporation for the renewal of 3 oil blocks in 2009. Even
though the oil company claimed to have paid the outstanding balance
of $1.9 billion there is no evidence of such payment. It is hoped
that the presidential panel will pursue the matter to a logical
conclusion

However, the most interesting reaction to my letter came from
Dr. Ibe Kachukwu, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Petreum
Resources. He concurred with me that the nation had lost not less
than $60 billion due to the failure of some public officers to
implement the provisions of the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin
Production Sharing Contracts Act. Section 16 of the Act provides
that the royalties paid by oil companies shall be adjusted upwards
whenever the price of oil rose beyond $20 per barrel. Since there
was no reason adduced for not enforcing the law for 18 years the
authorities of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers State governments
dragged the federal government to the Supreme Court to justify why
it has refused to implement the law. In a judgment delivered by the
apex court on October 18, 2018 the federal government was ordered
to take urgent steps to recover all revenues lost to oil and gas
exploring and exploiting companies due to wrong profit sharing
formula termed as the Production Sharing Contracts since 2003. It
is hoped that the federal government will proceed to recover the
sum of money estimated to be in the region of $1 trillion.

I must not fail to acknowledge that the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission has commenced investigation into the allegation
of crude oil stolen from the country by well known international
oil and shipping companies. For instance, it has been confirmed
that 60.2 million barrels of crude oil stolen from Nigeria between
2011 and 2014 were discharged at Philadephia port in the United
States. If the investigation can be painstakingly conducted it is
estimated that not less than $300 billion could be realised as the
costs and penalties for the oil stolen from Nigeria and discharged
in several ports in the United States, China, India, United
Kingdom, France, etc.

Finance to proceed to recover the huge funds highlighted in my
letter. I can assure the federal government that I do not intend to
demand payment of any percentage from the fund to be recovered
based on the whistle that I have blown which has been ignored.
Having regards to the fact that the public and private
organisations that have been fingered in my letter are very
powerful and vested the federal government cannot muster the
political will to recover the fund that has been withheld from the
federation account. Therefore, the Nigerian people who stand to
benefit from the judicious deployment of recovered loot should be
mobilised by the progressive extraction of civil society
organisations to take over the fight against corruption.

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