Tosin Ojaomo, the prosecutor of the dissolved special presidential investigation panel for the recovery of public property, has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of “stealing” the sum of $60 billion belonging to the federal government.
The presidential panel was dissolved in 2019 by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ojaomo revealed this on Wednesday when he appeared before the house of representatives ad-hoc committee investigating the status of recovered loots from 2002 to 2020.
This comes barely 24 hours after the house committee on finance asked the NNPC to submit details of its revenue remittances into the consolidation federation account from 2014 to 2019.
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The revelation also adds to the many allegations of corruption that have surrounded the operations of the NNPC over the years.
Speaking during the hearing on Wednesday, Ojaomo said the stolen money is domiciled in Texas, the United States.
“Another interesting one is also a certain account which is domiciled at a Polaris Bank where the sum of $223 million was kept under the guise of NNPC operations account. This account was not linked to the Treasury Single Account (TSA), it was just a stand alone account,” he said.
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“The panel invited the bank and asked them what is this money meant for. They said they have directive to keep the money. But it was not satisfactory, the bank was ordered to keep the money to the TSA but the bank pleaded that they would not be able to pay the money but that they will pay 10 million every month.
“There was an intelligence given to the panel that the sum of $60 billion belonging to the Nigerian government is currently being domiciled at Texas in the United States of America which the panel has stated working on.
“The panel also got a foreign intelligence from the United States of America that a certain amount of money which was stolen from Nigeria through the NNPC to be precise was currently domiciled at Texas is the sum of $60 billion which the panel was about to recover.”
Ojaomo said the presidential panel made effort to recover the funds but the attorney-general of the federation took over the case.
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He also accused Exxonmobil of failing to remit royalties to the federal government.
“There is also an oil company, Exxonmobil. They have not been paying royalties to the federal government. This panel (presidential panel) also invited them based on intelligence,” he added.
“They admitted that they are supposed to pay the sum of $1.9 billion to the federal government but they have only paid 600 million out of this money.
“Most of this documents are currently with the office of the attorney-general of the federation. They should be the one to shed light on it.”
Ojaomo further accused the auditor-general of the federation of illegal withdrawal from the account of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
“The panel got an information that the auditor-general withdrew the sum of 10 billion from the account of the national health insurance scheme (NHIS) — 5 billion in two tranches,” he said.
He said when invited to account for the withdrawal, the auditor-general through several letters, said he is not subject to directive.
Edun Oladapo, a member of the committee from Ogun state, moved a motion that Ojaomo avail the panel with the documents so that it can have enough time to study it and invite the parties involved.
Adejoro Adeogun, chairman of the committee, ruled on the motion and said the documents should be provided to the panel.
“At this stage we will have to stop you, not because we are trying to stop you from speaking,” he said.
“You have made weighty allegations that huge funds belonging to Nigeria could have been recovered but for some reasons he sat on them for whatever reason.”
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