Scam: Hon. Farouk Lawal seating before House Committee on Ethics and Privileges over $620 bribe Scam at National Assembly Abuja. Photo by Gbemiga Olamikan.




ABUJA — Investigations by Police detectives into the $620,000 oil subsidy bribe money collected by Mr Farouk Lawan from oil magnate, Mr. Femi Otedola, have unearthed a wider financial scandal.

It was gathered that oil marketers who were indicted in the report recently submitted to the government by the Aigboje Aig-Imoukuede-led panel that probed the fuel subsidy claims allegedly paid about $10 million as bribe to Lawan committee.

Vanguard gathered that while the Aig-Imoukuede-led panel uncovered fraudulent overpayments to many of the oil marketers to the tune of N422 billion, all the oil marketers involved and indicted were invited and interrogated by the Lawan committee but were given a clean bill of health.

80% bribe money collected abroad

It has now emerged that the oil marketers gave bribes in foreign currency to the tune of about $10 million and that over 80 per cent of the bribes given were done abroad as the oil marketers, acting in partnership, sponsored some of the leaders of the House subsidy probe panel to the UK and the US, lodged them in choice hotels and gave them the bribes which influenced their being cleared of any fraudulent practice by the committee.

Sources told Vanguard yesterday that the decision of the oil marketers to give out such huge bribes to the House committee was to enable them use the clean bill of health report card, given by the House, to counter the report that would be presented by the Finance Committee panel.

According to sources, police detectives were shocked to find out that the amount of bribe money collected by the Lawan subsidy probe panel to over N15 billion while many House members who hitherto pretended to know nothing of the $620, 000 collected by Farouk, and even lambasted him over the $3 million scam, are neck deep in the $10 million scam.

The marketers were said to have settled for the Farouk committee because the Aig-Imoukuede panel was a no go area and bluntly told them they were not interested in taking bribes to influence their finding.

When Vanguard sought to know what the Police would do concerning the new discovery about the $10 million bribe money most of which took place abroad, it was told that the Police has its ways and that those involved would be found out.

Reps summon Otedola to appear on July 3

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives Committee on Ethics and Privileges has summoned Chairman of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Ltd, Mr. Femi Otedola, to appear before it on July 3.

This was disclosed, yesterday, by the chairman of the committee, Gambo Musa, while briefing newsmen on the proceedings of the committee which interrogated Farouk Lawan over Otedola’s allegation that Lawan collected $620,000 as part of the $3 million bribe he had demanded.

Musa said this had become necessary to enable Otedola respond to some of the revelations made by Lawan when he appeared before the committee.

Lawan who arrived the House Meeting room 4.59, venue of the hearing, at exactly 1.05pm looked relaxed in his white caftan with a white hat to match. However, shortly after saying the prayers and reading his opening speech, Musa ordered journalists out of the venue of the hearing.

In his opening remarks, Musa recalled how the House reconvened early last January, to address the issue of the Federal Government’s withdrawal of fuel subsidy which had sparked off nation-wide protests. He also recalled how the House had set up the Adhoc Committee led by Lawan to probe the fuel subsidy regime and its disbursement adding that the Committee’s report had attracted applause nation-wide after it was submitted.

He further recalled how the activities of the Committee had taken a new twist after Otedola had alleged he gave Lawan $620,000 as bribe for the purpose of delisting Zenon Petroleum and Gas Ltd. from companies indicted for diverting foreign exchange allocated to them by the CBN for the purpose of importing petroleum products.

Musa further stated that it was the responsibility of the Committee to unravel what actually transpired during its investigations. He had explained that Lawan had to be interrogated in camera to avoid jeopardizing the Committee’s investigations.










http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/06/faroukgate-police-uncover-fresh-10m-bribe/

Na today . . . .

Interesting

What's he going to do with all that money? Stuff it up his arse? Or maybe get a golden one? Smh at these greedy people.

this drama has rendered d motive 4 d withdrawal of fuel subsidy grossly worthless.we r in deep trouble

we are in deep trouble

Lawan collects money, not bribe.

Is subsidized fuel not better off than non-subsidized fuel now?GEJ shouldn't have removed the subsidy in the first place without proper investigation.

Is subsidized fuel not better off than non-subsidized fuel now?GEJ shouldn't have removed the subsidy in the first place without proper investigation.Nigeria is in a deep mess o.

OMG!!!!!!

There is always new thing to talk about in Nigerian politics on a daily basis. While all efforts are channeled towards ensuring that the already unveiled ones are cleared, new ones are surfacing! This is a very clear reason why we are always inconclusive with all criminal investigations in this country. My candid advice therefore is that all these scandals should be assigned to the various trusted anti-graft bodies we have in the country and timely and effective conclusion drawn before reports could be forwarded to the relevant body, otherwise police and EFCC only could not handle them alone. As we can see, more are coming!

Sick country

#modified for the retarded fools who keep mastur bating on it.

make God punish poverty,abi who no like beta thing

so ppl have 10 million dollars to bribe yet, some graduates can't get 10 thousand naira a month job in 9ja. i may soon go on a killing spree.

Act 1 Scene 2

what r they going to do with ds ridiculous sum of money? While d child mortality rate is increasing day by day,millions of viable youths are Jobless,u cant even trust ur neighbour again becos of incessant insecurity wahala and ds guys keep taking money that is even more than some countries budget.This is so pathetic

@ileke-Idi,no politician is worth dying for in nigeria.dis is goin 2 b d best seasonal film of 2012

If Otedola had not recorded Farouk Lawan, would most people know what went down in the PSF scheme and NNPC in general?

How many companies would have escaped after bribing?
How many innocent companies would have been made to carry the blame for everything?
the real culprits would have escaped (Diezani, Ibikunle, Reginald Stanley).

We need to open our eyes more to things, investigate further, understand what goes on in the industry. There is no rush to get results. We need to get the right results.

In the UK, the hacking scandal took 4 years to come to light. In that time the scope of the hacking and involvement has been exposed for all to see.

dat money shuld be enough to put phcn in place to increase power supply...or better still use the money to creat employment...we need good topics here not bribe dis nd dat.....its notin new at the end of d day no 1 goes to jail

Pakavy: this drama has rendered d motive 4 d withdrawal of fuel subsidy grossly worthless.we r in deep trouble

On the contrary, looking at the then argument of the governement with the hindsight of recent happenings, it gives credences to the fact that the government meant to remove the dubious incentive of this subsidy from the companies profiteering from it without any/appropraite Petroluem product to show for it. I strongly believe this now.. how then can you explain how someone indicted for taking the remunerations for a product not delivered will be willing to pay up to the tune of $10M!!!!!!.. becuase it is chicken change to them, the honey pot is worth more than that!

Did they later summon obj for calling them thieves?

Atheist:-D:
If Otedola had not recorded Farouk Lawan, would most people know what went down in the PSF scheme and NNPC in general?

How many companies would have escaped after bribing?
How many innocent companies would have been made to carry the blame for everything?
the real culprits would have escaped (Diezani, Ibikunle, Reginald Stanley).

We need to open our eyes more to things, investigate further, understand what goes on in the industry. There is no rush to get results. We need to get the right results.

In the UK, the hacking scandal took 4 years to come to light. In that time the scope of the hacking and involvement has been exposed for all to see.

Plz post the "recording" that you saw here.

PDP is trying everything in its power to bring this man down. . . . while the case EFCC vs Patience was swept under the carpet.

And on the 8th day, he created Farouk.

Ileke-IdI:



Plz post the "recording" that you saw here.

PDP is trying everything in its power to bring this man down. . . . while the case EFCC vs Patience was swept under the carpet.

Farouk has agreed to taking the money so what are you talking about? Open your eyes.

This is a much greater scandal.

Temistatics 007: Is subsidized fuel not better off than non-subsidized fuel now?GEJ shouldn't have removed the subsidy in the first place without proper investigation.

You are still looking at this in light of our pocket, of course the subsidized fuel will be better off for all of us in the short run, however those profiteering from this subsidy are so grossly depriving all of Nigerians even to the ones unborn of much more....

I wondered to myself why GEJ would wake up one morning and announce to all Nigerians of the subsidy removal, nothing justified it, I could only hope in my mind that the man was not mad or so heartless...that the government may be privy to information that we dont have and i observed that NOI, Allison -Madueke and even GEJ very actively shied from making the subsidy removal about the "cabal" until the tail end of the protests... now do we see why? do we see the murkiness of JUST compiling the list of SUBSIDY criminals...
What will happen when the policce begin to investigate them, planes dropping out of skies will be just the tip of the iceberg!

The move was courgeous.. the citizens no doubt would have felt the initial hardship, but we would have rallied, whilst removing the incentive for the criminals!

Oh! Nigeria my Country!!!!

Atheist:-D:


Farouk has agreed to taking the money so what are you talking about? Open your eyes.

This is a much greater scandal.

He agreed to collecting the money as evidence, which he, as he claimed, turned in to another official.

All these are talks, no evidence. No video, just "I did" "He did" "We did".

musulumi: There is always new thing to talk about in Nigerian politics on a daily basis. While all efforts are channeled towards ensuring that the already unveiled ones are cleared, new ones are surfacing! This is a very clear reason why we are always inconclusive with all criminal investigations in this country. My candid advice therefore is that all these scandals should be assigned to the various trusted anti-graft bodies we have in the country and timely and effective conclusion drawn before reports could be forwarded to the relevant body, otherwise police and EFCC only could not handle them alone. As we can see, more are coming!

the EFCC was created to handle them all.its inability to do that is testament to the corrupt nature of its officials.EFCC arrests people on the pages of newspaper,makes noise about the strenght of its evidence,then brings up 150-1million count charges,gives the brief to 6-20 SANs and then what happens,the culprit walks free and then you wonder why people are still confident to loot the treasury.in the OBJ days,you were only corrupt if baba allows you to be,otherwise you lose your loot and position.wabara had to step down as senate president,osuji was sacked as education minister,DSP was impeached as governor,fayose was impeached,dariye was impeached.i agree it was lopsided but at least some crooks were paying for crimes.as it is now,everybody and anybody is confident enough to steal without fear of repercussion.

It still beats me why HYSON was asked to bow and go. Who is HYSON?, an offshore subsidiary of NNPC meant to refine crude for local consumption?
Please let us know from the committee what they know about how this arrangement was managed.

If this is true then the list in that subsidy report has just been completed. Find out all the companies that paid bribes and complete the list. Simple. And the police should stop being afraid to use strong hand on politicians, if it was ordinary civilians now they would become overzealous. Just slap the man a few times and show him scissors, he will crap his pants and confess, Nigerians are cowards.

On a more serious note, this is more of a law enforcement issue and the house is not a law enforcement body. The focus of the house of assembly should shift back to fuel subsidy probe and report been done properly, since they have shown in the past that they are poor at multi tasking I'd rather they focus on one thing at a time.

If there's anything which reinforces the urgent need for the withdrawal of subsidy, it is scandals of this nature.

This represents a corruption disaster long foretold. Any wonder on why the Minjster initiated moves for the total removal of subsidy last January. Ironically, the same cabal(dominantly northerners) who feed fat on subsidy are the ones who sponsored the protests against the withdrawal and aligned with Tambuwal to convene an emergency sitting wherein a resolution was reached to set up a probe panel. He who plays the piper dictates the tune. So it therefore follows logically that if you want to dictate the tune, then you must take over the piper.

Several investigations had been instituted before the house probe. There was the Senate committe subsidy probe headed by senate committee chairman on petroleum downstream, senator magnus Abe. There was the KPMG audit. There was the AIG Imoukehde probe set up by the Minister of Finance. Yet the Speaker drafted a scion of the North, Farouk Lawan, from his duty post as Education committee chairman to begin a separate probe. True to plan, they began a TV series on tthe probe thus taking the attention off all the other probes going on quietly.

I must admit that i enjoyed the probe drama while it lasted, but what arose my curiosity was the inability of the probe panel to summon the likes of Northern oil administrators like Rilwanu lukman, who was both special advicer and Minister of petroleum in most part of the period under review and Barkindo, who was former NNPC GMD. After a long wait, the report was out to the admiration of all. But no sooner had the executive received it than the labour leader, Waheed Omar lead a solidarity vist to Tambuwal threatening fire and brimstone over the non implementation of the report by the executive arm. The opposition joined forces with his calls and soon shouts for Dieziani's sack rent the air.

Somehow I have the belief that GEJ had the information at his disposal that Farouk report lacked fairness hence his delay in implementing the report. Added to this, notable companies owned by some Northerners who participated in the subsidy regime were absent on the list. What more? The sudden delisting of Zenon and synopsis at the floor of the house and the video released by Otedola led to the irresistible conclusion that Farouk was far from credible. Now more facts are emerging on how some companies were given clean bill of health by the farouk probe in order to shield them from the real probe instituted by govt and headed by a distinguished technocrat, AIG Imuokhede