It’s
more news the North wants GEJ out of the way, so their licenses can be
renewed cos most of them are expiring from 2016 upwards.
Monumental injustice is being perpetrated to the people of Niger Delta on whose soil the oil was found.
These people constitutes the main opposition to President Goodluck Jonathan today. Please Read on:
(1)
This oil block business is so lucrative that Danjuma’s Sapetro divested
of its investment in Akpo condensate for $1billion dollars. This
business is second to none in Nigeria. That is why any attempt to
investigate the activities in this sector will always be futile. The
money is so much that they give bribes in millions of dollars.
A
birthday gift or child naming gift from an oil block owner to a
government official could be as paltry as $2million dollars, and if the
official’s father died, the condolence gift could reach mere $3 million
dollars. When they want to bribe legislators, it is in millions of
dollars and any ongoing investigation ends within weeks. They are so
confident that with excess money they can buy up Nigeria and they are
succeeding
(2) OML 110 with high yield OBE oil fields was given
Cavendish Petroleum owned by Alhaji Mai Daribe, the Borno Patriarch in
1996 by Sanni Abacha. OBE oil field has estimated over 500 million
barrels of oil. In layman’s language and using average benchmark of $100
dollars per barrel, translates to $50 billion dollars worth of oil
reserve. When you remove the taxes, royalties and sundry duties worth
about 60% of the reserve payable over time you get about $20billion
dollars worth of oil in the hands of a family.
(3) OPL 246 was
awarded to SAPETRO, a company owned by General Theophilus Danjuma, by
Sanni Abacha in 1998. Akpo condensate exports about 300,000 barrels of
crude daily.
(4) NOML 112 and OML 117 were awarded to AMNI
International Petroleum Development Company owned by Colonel Sanni Bello
in 1999. Sanni Bello is an inlaw to Abdulsalami Abubakar, former Head
of State of Nigeria.
(5) OML 115, OLDWOK Field and EBOK field was
awarded to Alhaji Mohammed Indimi from Niger State. Indimi is an inlaw
to former Military President Ibrahim Babangida.
(6) OML 215 is operated by Nor East Petroleum Limited owned by Alhaji Saleh Mohammed Gambo.
(7) OML 108 is operated by Express Petroleum Company Limited is owned by Alhaji Aminu Dantata.
(cool OML II3 allocated to Yinka Folawiyo Pet Ltd is owned by Alhaji W.I. folawiyo
(9)ASUOKPU/UMUTU
marginal oil fields is operated by Seplat Petroleum. Seplat is owned by
Prince Nasiru Ado Bayero, cousin to the Central Bank Governor Lamido
Sanusi. This oil field has the capacity of 300,000 barrels of oil daily.
This translates to $30million dollars daily at average benchmark of
$100 dollars per barrel. Deducting all sundry taxes, royalties etc ,
this field can yield $12billion dollars daily for the owners .
(10)Intel
owned by Atiku, Yarádua and Ado Bayero has substantial stakes in
Nigeria’s oil exploration industry both in Nigeria and Principe and Sao
Tome.
(11) AMNI owns two oil blocks OML 112 and OML 117 which it
runs Afren plc and Vitol has substantial stakes in oil blocks. Afren plc
is operating EBOK oil fields in OML 67. Vitol lifts 300,000 barrels of
Nigerian oil daily. Rilwanu Lukman, former OPEC Chairman has stakes in
all these named three companies.
(12) OPL 245 was awarded to
Malabu Oil& Gas Company by Sanni Abacha. Dan Etete, Abacha’s oil
minister owns Malabu Oil. In 2000, Vice President Atiku Abubakar
convinced Obasanjo to revoke OPL 245 given to Malabu Oil. Etete had
earlier rejected Atiku’s demand for substantial stakes in the high yield
OPL 245 and it attracted the venom of Ota Majesty who revoked the
licence. However, in 2006, Obasanjo had mercy on Dan Etete and gave him
back his oil block worth over $20 billion dollars.
(13) OPL 289
and OPL 233 was awarded during Obasanjo era to Peter Odili fronts,
Cleanwater Consortium, consisting of Clenwater Refinery and RivGas
Petroleum and Gas Company. Odili’s brother in law, Okey Ezenwa manages
the consortium as Vice Chairman.
(14) OPL 286 is managed by Focus
Energy in partnership with BG Group, a British oil concern. Andy Uba
has stakes in Focus Energy and his modus operandi is such that you can
never see his name in any listings yet he controls OPL and OML through
proxies
(15)OPL 291 was awarded to Starcrest Energy Nigeria
Limited, owned by Emeka Offor by Obasanjo . Immediately after the award,
Starcrest sold the oil block to Addax Petroleum Development Company
Limited (ADDAX) Addax paid Sir Emeka Offor a farming fee of $35million
dollars and still paid the signature bonus to the government. Emeka
Offor still retains stake in ADDAX operations in Nigeria.
(16)
Mike Adenuga’s Conoil is the oldest indigenous oil exploration industry
in Nigeria. Conoil has six oil blocks and exports above 200,000 barrels
of crude daily.
(17)The oil block national cake sharing fiesta could
take twists according to the mood of the Commander-in –Chief at the
particular time. In 2006, Obasanjo revoked OPL 246 which Abacha gave to
Danjuma because he refused to support the tenure elongation bid of the
Ota Majesty. In 2000, Obasanjo had earlier revoked OPL 241 given to Dan
Etete under the advice Atiku. However, when the Obasanjo-Atiku faceoff
started, the Ota Majesty made a u-turn and handed back the oil block to
Etete.
(18)During the time of Late President Yarádua , a panel
headed by Olusegun Ogunjana was set up to investigate the level of
transparency in the award of oil blocks. The panel recommended that 25
oil blocks awarded by the Obasanjo be revoked because the manner they
were obtained failed to meet the best practices in the industry. Sadiq
Mahmood, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum endorsed the
report to then president with all its recommendations. As a result of
the report Yarádua revoked eleven oil blocks.
(19) In April 2011
Mike Adenuga attempted to buy Shell’s OML 30 for $1.2 billion dollars.
The Minister for Petroleum and Nigeria’s most powerful woman refused the
sale of the OML30 to Adenuga citing national interest. This block was
later sold to Heritage Oil for $800 million dollars eleven months later.
(20)
In the name of competitive bidding, which Obasanjo introduced in 2005,
Officials bring companies overnight and through processes best described
as secretive and voodooist they award blocks to party faithful, fronts
and phoney companies. They collect gratifications running into hundreds
of millions of dollars which is paid into offshore account and the
nation loses billions of dollars of revenue to private pockets.
During
the third term agenda, Obasanjo was deceived that the allocation of oil
block to party faithfuls is to fund the third term agenda. With the
failure of the third term, the beneficiaries went home with their
fortunes and thanked God or Allah for buttering their bread.
Senator
Andy Uba co ordinate the award of the last rounds of oil block by
Obasanjo in 2005 and 2007. The then minister of petroleum, Edwin Daukoru
was a mere errand boy who took instructions from the presidential aide
The
process of sharing Nigeria’s oil block national cake is as fraudulent
now as when Ibrahim Babangida started the process of discretionary
allocation of oil blocks to indigenous firms. Discretionary allocation
of oil blocks entails that a president can reward a mistress who
performs wonderfully with an oil block with capacity for cumulative
yield of over $20 billion dollars without recourse to any process
outside of manhood attachments.
Babangida, Abacha, Abdulsalami
and Obasanjo awarded discretionary oil blocks to friends, associates,
family members, party chieftains, security chiefs and all categories of
bootlickers, spokespersons and cult members without any laid down
procedures.
The recipients of such oil blocks will get funds from
ever willing offshore financiers and partners to graciously settle the
benefactors, the awarders, facilitators and the Commander-in-Chief
through fronts. These settlements mostly paid into foreign accounts runs
into hundreds of millions of dollars according to the potential yield
of the block.
Sometimes, the awarder (sharer of national cake and
direct intermediaries) demand additional stakes in the bidding
company. The awarder sends fronts as part of the directorship and
management of the bidding firms without leaving a link to them. That is
how the oil block national cake is distributed to a few Nigerians.
Signature
bonuses which are paid when an investor successfully bids, wins and
signs agreement with the petroleum ministry, running into tens of
millions and sometimes hundreds of millions of naira ,is often waived
off. There is actually no waiver; rather a diversion of what would have
been paid to government t coffers is paid into private purse as
appreciation gifts.
That is why those in the Petroleum Ministry
dread retirement as though it signifies going to hell fire. No matter
how little your influence, something substantial must enter your hands
especially in hard currency. The nation loses billions of dollars in
diverted revenue whenever any round of auction occurs.
The regime
of President Goodluck is not showing any signs of changing the status
quo. Controversies have trailed the activities of the Minister of
Petroleum and many players in the Industry accuse her of demanding
stakes from every oil deal. It is hoped that President Goodluck Jonathan
will remember his transformational promise to Nigerians and endeavour
to face the hawks in the oil industry.
The angst in the air is so
much that if this monster of illegal allocation of oil block is not
addressed, the much touted revolution could begin all of a sudden and
all who condoned this illegality at the expense of hungry Nigerians may
have nowhere to hide.
