Atedo Peterside

Guest Columnist

A foreign correspondent first called my attention to it. We were at the same party in Lagos. He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, in a tone that suggested conspiracy and/or gossip, asking if I had heard about the missing $49.8 bn at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). There was a glint in his eye. A knowing look and a half smile that said: “after all this is Nigeria and so we love to give headline coverage to the negative - theft, corruption, sleaze etc.” I pointed at the glass in his hand and asked him if he had been drinking a little too much.

I could understand $1bn or $2 bn going missing, but not $49.8 bn which was close to 75 per cent of our Federal Budget. Then he “hit” me with what I was least prepared for. The allegation came via a letter addressed to President Goodluck Jonathan by the then Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which alleged that up to $49.8bn might have gone missing at the NNPC.

My head was spinning because I knew there was no way such a huge amount could be missing without the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Finance Minister (CME) and her team being aware. Meanwhile, I knew the ex-CBN Governor to be largely patriotic, sincere, hard-working, intelligent, courageous and truthful. If I was to list his faults (and we all have ours), I would have listed a hot temper, mild arrogance, and being “louder” than all his contemporaries around the globe. It was impossible for me to reconcile the CME’s assurances and my own intuitive assessment that any missing funds could not be anywhere near $49.8 billion, with my knowledge of the ex-CBN Governor to be basically a truthful person. I shall return to this theme later.

I would like to confess that I have never trusted the NNPC. I always felt that it was conceived and structured, from the first day, as a perfect conduit for shady financial transactions by cronies of any Government in power. At no time in its history has NNPC operated in the national interest for any length of time. Like many other agencies of the Government, who are supposed to remit funds to the Federation Account, NNPC has always been notorious for remitting the barest minimum that it could get away with. Those who love the NNPC idea generally also believe that State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) can work in the national interest in Nigeria for sustained periods. They simultaneously sing the praises of Petronas in Malaysia and Petrobras in Brazil as models that our own NNPC can emulate. Suffice to say that we now know that Petrobras, which was hailed as a model oil and gas SOE, had long been inflicted by the exact same twin evils of political interference and corruption. It is now under investigation and some of its prominent officials will go to prison.
Wake up on any day of your choice and accuse NNPC of failing to remit 100% of what is due to the Federation Account and you will be right - the worst that can happen is that you may be incorrect on the scale/magnitude. Therefore, do not blame the Ex-CBN Governor for hurling what we now know to be partially incorrect “shots” at them; instead blame those who created the monstrosity known as NNPC. We all “smelt a rat” when the Ex-CBN Governor’s estimate of the missing sums at NNPC started fluctuating wildly. The figure went from $49.8 bn to $10 bn approx. and then suddenly leapt back up to $20 bn. As if that was not confusing enough, our overpaid Senators who spent two years toying with a draft Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), jumped into the fray pretending that they could “resolve” this matter.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/tales-of-the-unexpected-at-nnpc-and-cbn/204759/

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