The Niger Delta Congress has come across startling revelations of grand theft made by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation against the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) now known as the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
These revelations, which according to news reports are contained in the 2019 audit report of the NNPC, shows the level of crude oil theft going on at the NNPC and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources with over 100,000,000 (one hundred million) barrels of crude oil unaccounted for by the corporation in 2019.
This revelation made by the OAuGF has thwarted the attempts of the leadership of the NNPC in recent times to blame the reduction in crude oil earnings on artisanal refiners and illegal bunkerers as a ruse, while it has engaged in what appears to be an officially sanctioned and well organised larceny of crude on a scale that artisanal refiners and their collaborators are currently incapable of.
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A breakdown of the over hundred million barrels of crude oil not accounted for in 2019 alone amounts to over 2,000,000,000,000 (two trillion naira) lost to what we can term criminal activities in the NNPC and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, without being directly beneficial to the Niger Delta people who own the resources in particular, and the generality of Nigerians.
This figure in question is worth a quarter of Nigeria’s 2019 budget estimate, over 60% of its expected crude oil earnings for the 2019 fiscal year, and over 85% of the combined earnings of the six Niger Delta states of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, and Rivers State from the Federation Account for the same year 2019. That such high level theft of an entire quarter of Nigeria’s crude production could go unnoticed and unaddressed for over two years not only shows the depths to which the nation has sunk, but also proves the Niger Delta Congress position that the NNPC in times past and under its current leadership of Mele Kyari has operated solely as a criminal enterprise backed by the government of the federation.
The NDC would like to state that the actions of the NNPC under the leadership of Mele Kyari are unacceptable to the nationalities of the Niger Delta who bear the brunt and carry the weight of Nigeria’s political economy, and calls for the immediate sack and prosecution of the entire leadership of the NNPC by the Minister of Petroleum and President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari. We believe that any action short of this will prove to the world that the NNPC did not work alone but hand-in-glove with the Ministry of Petroleum, manned by the President himself and his Minister of State for petroleum; even this won’t be a surprise to us.
STATEMENT ISSUED BY THE NDC:
Barr Ovunda C. Eni
(National Spokesperson)
