Premiumtimesng Reports : Obasanjo reminds
President Jonathan that the persons linked with the corruption
allegation and those they are working for would one day become public
knowledge.
The national outrage trailing the allegation by the governor of the
Central Bank of Nigeria
, Lamido Sanusi, about the non-remittance of over
N8 trillion oil revenue by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,
NNPC, is not about to ebb, as former President Olusegun Obasanjo has
called for immediate probe into the “heinous crime and naked grand
corruption.”
“May God grant you the grace for at least one effective corrective
action against high corruption, which seems to stink all around you in
your government,” Mr. Obasanjo said.
President Obasanjo in a letter to President Goodluck Jonathan,
titled: “Before It Is Too Late”, challenged the National Assembly to
know that Nigerians were watching to see if it would be accomplice to
the crime or redeem itself by probing it.
“When the guard becomes the thief, nothing is safe, secure or
protected in the house,” the former President said. “We must all
remember that corruption, inequity and injustice breed poverty,
unemployment, conflict, violence and, wittingly or unwittingly, create
terrorists.”
He said the serious issue of non-remittance of the revenue realised
from the sale of crude oil allocation for domestic refining must be
thoroughly and transparently investigated and the findings made public.
About $900million per month was reportedly realised from the export
of some 300,000 barrels per day of crude oil allocated for local
refining, while another $400million returned with refined products were
allegedly confirmed by the CBN not to have been remitted to government.
Again, the loading of about 130,000 barrels of crude oil by Atlantic
Oil sold by Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, and managed on
behalf of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, he said, had
no records that the proceeds were paid into the NPDC account.
“This allegation will not fly away by non-action, cover-up, denial or
bribing possible investigator. Please deal with the allegation
transparently and let the truth be known,” Mr. Obasanjo warned.
He reminded President Jonathan that the persons linked with the
allegation and those they were working for would one day become public
knowledge, urging the National Assembly to know that Nigerians are
watching what it would do over the issue.
In her reaction to PREMIUM TIMES’ report on the CBN allegation,
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, bushed aside the issues, describing the report as another
subject of high profile media attacks on her person from several
quarters.
“The aim of these elements is to unduly politicise the management of
the economy through a campaign of falsehoods and distortions,” Mrs.
Okonjo-Iweala said through her special adviser on Media, Paul Nwabuikwu.
Mr. Nwabuikwu said the pronouncements of those he called political
vested interests were based on false information and outright lies
disguised as objective comments, pointing out that the campaign to
damage the name of the Minister, like previous ones, would fail.
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