Last minute oil deals that cost Nigeria dear

234Next

12 June 2011

Last minute oil deals that cost Nigeria dear

Just two days before the federal cabinet dissolved to allow President Goodluck Jonathan appoint a fresh one in recognition of his new electoral mandate, officials in charge of our oil and gas resources secretly signed a deal assigning production rights in at least two large oil blocks to a shadowy company with no prior experience and no fixed address.

Under the direction and with the approval of then petroleum minister Diezani Allison-Madueke, the officials with a magic wave of a pen effectively transferred hundreds of millions of US dollars - possibly billions - in public assets to private individuals without a public tender.

The deal is in apparent violation of Nigeria's Public Procurement Act, which forbids no-tender bids for the procurement of goods and services by any government-owned institution under penalty of imprisonment.