The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee constituted to probe alleged illegal sale of 48 million barrels of Nigeria’s crude oil in 2015 says it found no incriminating evidence against neither the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, nor the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Gbenga Komolafe.
In 2015, shortly after the inauguration of the then Muhammadu Buhari administration, reports made the rounds in some fringe online media platforms alleging that about 48 million barrels of Nigeria’s crude oil were uncovered stored in tank farms in China and being hawked illegally by some unknown NNPC officials, while the proceeds were diverted into private pockets.
The reports made insinuations pointing accusing fingers at Kyari and Komolafe, who were at the time Group General Manager in charge of Crude Oil Marketing Department (COMD) and Executive Director (Upstream department), both of the then state-owned oil company, the NNPC respectively.
The report claimed the country was being ripped off of a whooping $2.4billion that should have acrued to the Federation Account in revenues from the suspected illicit transaction, which involved crude oil exports between 2014 and 2015.
One of the reports quoted a letter from a Nigerian law firm, Lords & Temple, purported to have been written to the then Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Joseph Dawha, about the deal.
The law firm, which claimed to be solicitors to a Mexican company, SAMANO SA DE CV and its President/Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Jose Salazar Tinajero, said their client was approached by an unnamed Chinese group in 2015 with an offer by some unnamed NNPC officials to sell 48 million barrels of Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude oil allegedly stolen from Nigeria and stored in tank farms in China.
Lords & Temple claimed that in October 2015 when their client became aware of attempts by the “NNPC officials” to dispose of the stolen crude oil consignment, SAMANO President sent an email through an associate of their client, one Marco Antonio Ramirez, to Kyari, as the top NNPC official in charge of Crude oil marketing, to express their interest in buying the crude oil.
The law firm said although neither Kyari nor the Nigerian government sent any positive response to their mail, they claimed some of their client officials received several threat notices, harassments and persecution allegedly for demanding compensation to be paid to them by the Nigerian government for the information they provided about the suspected stolen crude oil cargoes in China.
Subsequently, the law firm said their client wrote several letters to several lawmakers and top Nigerian government officials in Nigeria to complain about their predicament over their claims.
Some of the letters was accompanied with attachments showing official correspondences purported to convey approvals by officials at NNPC Bonny terminal for the sale of about nine million barrels of crude oil in storage in unverified tank farms in China.
One of the online reports, which quoted from the supposed approval letters claimed the crude oil was part of an approved volume assigned to be lifted from the Bonny terminal allegedly included in storage information from the tank farms in China.
However, the House of Representatives Committee, which was constituted on December 20, last year, with Mark Gbillah Terseer as the headed, said in its report submitted to the House on Wednesday, June 7 that its investigations did not find anything incriminating against neither Kyari nor Komolafe involving the deal widely believed to have been a scam.
In its recommendations, the Committee stated: “There is no evidence of wrongdoing against the Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC, Malam Mele Kyari with regards to these allegations.
“Also, there was no involvement or wrongdoing in the entire transaction involving the current Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory
Commission (NUPRC), Engr. Gbenga Komolafe who was the Executive Director of NNPC Upstream department when these allegations were made.”
The Committee said throughout the course of its investigations, neither Ramirez nor Tinajero provided any information or was able to provide the identity of the so-called group in China that drew their attention to the existence of up to 48 million barrels of Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude oil in China to authenticate their claims.
Besides, the Committee said that contrary to claims by Lords & Temple in their letter that their client was in possession of documents, including bank transfer details, names of vessels and their captains to show that the alleged stolen crude was illicitly sold by some officials of the Nigerian government and the NNPC, none of these documents were provided by either Rarnirez or Tinajero to corroborate their allegations.
