PRESS STATEMENT
27th JULY 2008
NNPC $12M PAYMENT TO MILITANTS MATTERS ARISING
Conference of Nigeria Political Parties {CNPP} is outraged when the
Group Managing Director {GMD} NNPC, Abubakar Yaradua told the nation,
that huge sums of money is going down the drain in the name of
protection of oil facilities.
GMD, Abubakar Yaradua told the House of Representatives Committee that,‘The price we pay is very high. It is difficult to get expatriates to
work in the Niger Delta. We paid militants $12m {N1.4bn}, because we
were losing $81m daily to the problem of the Charnomi Creek pipeline in
Delta State’
The matters arising out of this innocent submission by the GMD is one,
if $12m is paid to either militants or local company to protect the
Charnomi Creek pipeline, how much was paid since the insurgence of the
militants, to protect Bonga and other oil facilities in the Niger Delta?
Two, who authorized or appropriated the payment?
Three, where is the Military Joint Task Force {JTF} in all this
calculation?
CNPP outrage is predicated on our earlier position that, Massive
Infrastructural Development is what is needed in the region. How can
Nigeria earn over $77 billion between 2003 and 2008, going by the GMD,
NNPC’s account, and minimum of $10 billion cannot be set aside for the
development of the region?
It is very disheartening that when Nigerians are celebrating that the
era of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s gerrymandering and orchestra of
deception on the issue of Niger Delta and indeed Nigeria development is
gone; we are confronted with President Umaru Yaradua, who is engrossed
in inertia template, sermonizing over the need for summit, dialogue or
emergency.
The danger of President Yaradua’s inertia template is that centers of
power are mutating gross corruption around him. Can President Yaradua,
as the main Minister of Petroleum, tell Nigerians how much is expended
in the protection of oil facilities?
We bemoan the capture the of oil industry by kleptomaniacs, a scenario
that has put to test the new helmswoman in the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission {EFCC}, Mrs Fraida Waziri. It is incumbent on her to
unravel how much we loose in the protection of oil facilities.
Consequently, we call on the EFCC to as a matter of urgent national
importance to investigate the millions of dollars siphoned through the
so called protection of oil facilities without prejudice to the JTF.
Failure which she will vindicate some of us who cried out that she is
coming to equity with unclean hands.
Osita Okechukwu
National Publicity Secretary
CNPP
08039738870