Ribadu report generates more ripples

The ANPP slams the FG over the contents of the leaked report of the Ribadu committee on petroleum revenues

Following the widely reported news about a leaked report of the Nuhu Ribadu-led Petroleum Revenues Task Force, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), on Sunday, described the PDP-led government as corrupt, asking it to “apologise for the decade-old daylight robbery of the whole federation.”

The party said it received with deep concern the widely reported news which says “Nigeria lost about N4.64trillion over the last decade from cut-price deals struck between multinational oil companies and government officials.”

The ANPP, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Hon. Emma Eneukwu, also called on the National Assembly to look into this indicting report in order to ascertain the true situation of things.

It said this would also ensure that the so-called committee set up to look into the Ribadu Committee’s report does not cover up vital facts which will help to exorcise the demon of corruption sucking the blood of this great nation with NNPC as the siphon.

“We submitted that instead of trying to sweep this glaring and damning disclosure under its long-worn carpet, this present PDP government should own up to the decade-old daylight robbery of the whole Federation, and apologise to the hapless Nigerian citizens who are the unfortunate victims.

“This is when the nation, as one body, shall then go after all the indicted officials, companies, private individuals and multinationals who have participated in the great rip-off of Nigeria,” the ANPP said.

The task force, which has as one of its terms of reference to work with consultants and experts to determine and verify all petroleum upstream and downstream revenues (taxes, royalties, etc.) due and payable to the Federal Government of Nigeria, according to ANPP, found out, among other things, that NNPC gets an allocation of 445,000bpd of crude oil to refine locally but it has been selling itself this oil at cut-down prices, a practice which cost Nigeria five billion dollar in potential revenue between 2002-2011.

The party also noted that The Presidency has since tried to water down the gravity of these revelations by saying that because the Ribadu Committee had not formally submitted its report to the appropriate authority, the report in the public domain is suspicious.

“However, we wish to ask whether the Leadership newspaper report of a forged Export Clearance Permit of more than one and a half billion dollar is also suspicious or the letter written by the Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr Olusegun Aganga to President Goodluck Jonathan, promising to investigate the source of the discovered fake document in his Ministry and brief the president accordingly is suspicious?

“On the other hand, we believe that the people have a lot to fear from the government if 24 million barrels of crude oil can afford to leave the shores of this nation under suspicious circumstances. We are also aware that coupled with the Reuters-broken report of the deep graft in the NNPC, what we are faced with is capable of ridiculing us in the comity of nations,” the ANPP remarked.