Festus Keyamo Explains Why Diezani Must Be Probed

Human Rights lawyer, Festus Keyamo, has reiterated his call for the probing of the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.

Keyamo had written a letter, less than 2 weeks back, to the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Rep asking the National Assembly to commence investigations into NNPC activities as some NNPC officials, in collaboration with some local companies, were allegedly looting the country’s resources.

He explains the shady deals are more pronounced  in the crude oil swap programme and offshore processing agreements of the company.

In an interview with Sahara TV on Saturday, Keyamo insisted there were a lot of issues necessitating investigations into Alison-M
adueke’s management of the petroleum ministry.

Here are the interview excerpts....

“It is about a whole lot of issues. In my petition, I was particular about what has come to be known as the crude oil swap deals. Under this arrangement, we never knew that a lot of our crude oil was given to private oil companies in exchange for their bringing in petroleum products. Under one arrangement, they were supposed to take it out. We signed (out) the products and then took them back to Nigeria whether they were petroleum products or by-products.

“Under the other arrangement, we were supposed to be given the crude oil to sell at the international market and then use the money to import petroleum products into the country. Now, there have been reports in the papers of late that under these arrangements, certain Nigerian oil and gas companies made very huge, unwarranted profits and the simple reason is that they imported far less than the crude oil that they bought.

“Under this arrangement, some of them bought private jets, property around the world and began to live large. Certain individuals in the NNPC were seen as collaborators in this deceitful and grand plot. Before the minister left office, she picked up her pen and wrote a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, inviting it to probe these individuals and these groups. And I asked myself some imple questions: It is a bit curious who had supervisory authority over these individuals and these issues,” he said. 

According to the lawyer, Alison-Madueke had access to all the relevant documents and could have easily given queries to the offenders.

“Why did she wait till the last minute to write a petition to the EFCC to probe these deals? And I told myself: It is not a person who runs to a police station to complain that is always the victim of the crime,” Keyamo said.

*Interview excerpts from Punch *