Against the backdrop of Friday’s resolution of the House of Representatives to put back Zenon Oil on the list of indicted oil marketers, Femi Otedola has said with the move he is now convinced Faruk Lawan and his deputy, Bernard Emenalo operated the extortion ring in concert with some powerful forces in the lower legislative chamber.
The Zenon chief executive also described the move by the House as what he tagged ‘a celebration of corruption’
The lawmakers also passed a motion to rescind its decision to remove Mr Otedola’s company – Zenon Oil and Gas, and another firm called Synopsis, from the list of companies indicted by the subsidy probe report. Lawan’s committee had initially listed Zenon Petroleum among oil marketers that bought foreign exchange from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) but failed to use the money to import fuel.
According to the initial report, Zenon oil and gas bought $232,975,385.13 worth of forex, but did not import petrol.
The report had recommended that Otedola’s company and 14 other marketers that had bought the foreign exchange be referred to the anti-corruption agencies to determine what they used the monies for.
However, while the report of the committee that probed the management of the fuel subsidy fund was being considered by the House of Representatives’ committee of whole, Lawan moved a motion to remove Otedola’s companies from the list of indicted companies.
In a statement Friday, the oil mogul “As far as I know Lawan could not have been working alone in this extortionist plot. A tree does not make a forest”
On the resolution by the House report Otedola said “Actions of today by the house is laughable, a mere celebration of corruption and a further indictment on their honorable member.”
On the figure quoted in the House report he said “… it is not possible to purchase $232, 975,385.13 million from CBN without importing the product. The total figure is not even $232, 975,385.13 million as alleged but $372, 207, 990 million. They should go and amend the report to read $372, 207, 990 million which is the correct figure.
It is not possible to purchase this volume of forex from the CBN with first class banks such as Access bank, FCMB, GTB, UBA and an international bank BNP Paribas which is one of the biggest and most respected banks in the world”
The oil merchant stuck to his story insisting that “Farouk Lawan demanded $3 million from me and because I refused to oblige him he included the name of Zenon amongst those who bought forex without importing petroleum products. He did this without even asking Zenon to produce a single document of the forex transaction.
He clearly wanted to extort money for an offence I did not commit. That is why I went to report to the security agencies.
If I had anything to hide I wouldn’t have gone to the agencies. There is an old adage that says “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones”.