Immediate past Minister of Petroleum Resources,
Diezani Alison-Madueke, has offered to refund the sum of $250 million
dollars to the Nigerian government in return for immunity from further
investigation and possible prosecution, SaharaReporters has learned.
However, her overture has reportedly received a cold response from
President Muhammadu Buhari.
A source in Aso Rock and a ranking member of the ruling All
Progressives Congress (APC) told our correspondent that the former
minister has been reaching out to influential government and ruling
party officials, in and outside Abuja, to prevail on President Buhari to
accept her offer and let bygones be bygone. According to our sources,
Mrs. Alison-Madueke had enlisted the support of several figures close to
Mr. Buhari, including Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, to
intercede with the incumbent president.
Mrs. Alison-Madueke was one of the closest ministers to former
President Goodluck Jonathan, and is reputed to have anchored and
facilitated numerous money-laundering scandals and deals that
characterized the era of the just-ended Jonathan administration. The
former Petroleum Minister oversaw several oil swap deals, the
disposition of oil wells handed over by Shell Petroleum to the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and the direct looting of funds
through the NNPC. Former Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi,
was forced out of office after he revealed that the NNPC had failed to
remit more than $20 billion in oil revenues with the CBN.
The former Petroleum Minister is the latest of several officials who
served under Mr. Jonathan’s government that are currently negotiating
“soft landing deals” with the Buhari administration. The incumbent
president, who was sworn in on May 29, 2015, has vowed to probe various
questionable financial actions taken by his successor or officials of
his government. Mr. Buhari is reportedly determined to recover billions
of dollars in stolen funds.
One source said Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s latest offer to refund at least
$250 million to the government came after she learned that President
Buhari’s scheduled meeting with US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch,
would include a discussion of ways that the US government could
facilitate the investigation, arrest and prosecution of some officials
of the Jonathan administration implicated in the theft of billions of
dollars and a variety of frauds that resulted in the loss of significant
sums of public funds in Nigeria.
SaharaReporters exclusively reported earlier in the week that the
former Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy,
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has been cooperating with the Buhari
administration’s ongoing, if quiet, probe of a series of questionable
financial transactions by the Jonathan administration.
Our sources revealed that Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala had given the Buhari
administration documents that expose a number of shady financial deals
executed by the Jonathan administration.
Two days ago, we reported that former Secretary General of the
Commonwealth, Emeka Anyaoku, had appealed to Mr. Buhari to halt the
ongoing probe of former President Jonathan’s administration. Even though
Mr. Anyaoku has denied that he urged Mr. Buhari to stop the
investigation of his predecessor’s financial dealings, our sources
insisted that the ex-Commonwealth chief executive brought up the
matter.
Our sources disclosed that Mr. Buhari was unimpressed by Mrs.
Alison-Madueke’s offer. “Mr. President considers the $250 million as
ridiculous considering the amount of money Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke
is suspected to have diverted into her pocket and those of others,” said
one source.
According to our sources, Mr. Buhari is intent on ordering a full
audit of deals and transactions done by the former Petroleum Minister
and her cohorts in the various agencies that reported to her.
In addition, the new president is reportedly focused on looking
further at the extensive embezzlement of security funds by appointees
of the former president. Mr. Buhari has approved an investigation of how
more than $3 billion in Nigeria’s defense budget was spent. Security
agents who searched the homes of former National Security Adviser, Sambo
Dasuki, reportedly carted away some revealing documents.
Earlier today, the Department of State Security (DSS) arrested and
detained Gordon Obuah, a former Chief Security Officer to President
Goodluck Jonathan. Mr. Obuah is reportedly being questioned over his
alleged mastermind of a multi-million dollar oil bunkering deal during
the former administration.
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