Oronsaye, Oti, Ribadu fight openly …before Jonathan

A prolonged drama played out at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Friday as the Chairman of the Petroleum Revenue Special Task force, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and two members of the committee – Mr. Stephen Oronsaye and Mr. Ben Oti – openly disagreed about the process that produced the report and its reliability.

An international news agency, Reuters, had last week quoted extensively from the report, which it described as confidential in a news item on its website.

The Reuters report was widely quoted by national newspapers.

Quoting from the 146-page report, a total of $183m (N28.73bn) in signature bonuses paid by oil companies to the federation was said to be missing.

The report said that Ministers of Petroleum Resources between 2008 and 2011 handed out seven discretionary oil licences, but that $183m in signature bonuses was missing from the deals.

Three of the oil licences were said to have been awarded since the current minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, assumed office in 2010.

With the leakage of the report, stakeholders, including labour unions and civil society organisations, had accused the Federal Government of attempting to cover up the fraud. But the allegation was denied by the Presidency.

In his bid to prove to his sincerity, President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday directed Ribadu and the chairmen of the two other task forces set up on the oil and gas sector to submit their reports to him on Friday.

The presentation started smoothly with the Chairman of the Task force on Governance, Mr. Dotun Suleiman; and the Chairman, National Refineries Special Task force, Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, taking their turns to summarise their reports and formally presenting same to Alison-Madueke.

The drama

The drama started when Ribadu was called upon to make his presentation.

He saluted the President’s courage for setting up the committees and expressed the hope that he would also display courage in implementing the recommendations.

He said all the issues raised in his report were the truth that would set the President and the country free if properly implemented because they would strengthen institutions and increase government revenue.

The former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission frowned on the use of traders to sell the nation’s crude oil, saying only Nigeria and Republic of Congo did so throughout the world.

“The FG should take action on issues of outstanding royalties, petroleum revenue tax and various penalties, for example, gas flaring penalties,” Ribadu said.

“The companies that are operating in Nigeria today are making huge money from our country. Many of them are going out and investing in other parts of the world.

“We’ve found out that so many of them, even simple thing as royalties they don’t pay. We need the money. We need them here. We need them to continue to do business but also let them also look at us and give us what is certainly our own entitlement.

“Another point I will highlight is the use of traders to sell our own crude oil. Nigeria is the only country in the world today that is doing that, other than Congo. I don’t think we should be comfortable in the neighbourhood of Congo. We have our own crude; we can sell directly like what other countries are doing. Increasing crude oil theft is a national tragedy and has grave consequence and there is need for urgent government action.”

Ribadu asked Jonathan to do more in his fight against corruption if something significant must be achieved by the government.

“Mr. President, you are doing well in fighting corruption but you still have to do more. With corruption you cannot get anything. Corruption means taking the money to wrong direction. If it continues, it is likely that we are going to get to a standstill,” he said.

“Mr. President, you are carrying out reforms, we are pleased with that. From my own personal experience which I want to share with you, carrying out reforms requires integrity otherwise it will come to nothing Ribadu added.”

The drama proper started when he concluded his remarks and made to present the report to Alison-Madueke.

As Ribadu was moving towards the minister, Oronsaye raised his hand signifying his intention to talk. Immediately after Ribadu handed over a copy of the report to the minister, the President recognised the former Head of Service of the Federation, who was at the time making frantic efforts for his raised hand to be noticed.