The prosecutor of the dissloved special presidential investigation panel for the recovery of public property, Tosin Ojaomo has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of stealing the sum of $60 billion belonging to the federal government.
Recall that the presidential panel was dissolved in 2019 by President Muhammadu Buhari
This revelation was made by Ojaomo on Wednesday when he appeared before the house of representatives ad-hoc committee investigating the status of recovered loots from 2002 to 2020.
This is coming barely 24 hours after the house committee on finance asked the NNPC to submit details of its revenue remittances into the consolidation federation account from 2014 to 2019.
The revelation also adds to the many allegations of corruption that have surrounded the operations of the NNPC over the years.
Speaking during the hearing on Wednesday, Ojaomo said the stolen money is domiciled in Texas, the United States.
“Another interesting one is also a certain account which is domiciled at a Polaris Bank where the sum of $223 million was kept under the guise of NNPC operations account. This account was not linked to the Treasury Single Account (TSA), it was just a stand alone account,” he said.
“The panel invited the bank and asked them what is this money meant for. They said they have directive to keep the money. But it was not satisfactory, the bank was ordered to keep the money to the TSA but the bank pleaded that they would not be able to pay the money but that they will pay 10 million every month.
“There was an intelligence given to the panel that the sum of $60 billion belonging to the Nigerian government is currently being domiciled at Texas in the United States of America which the panel has stated working on.
“The panel also got a foreign intelligence from the United States of America that a certain amount of money which was stolen from Nigeria through the NNPC to be precise was currently domiciled at Texas is the sum of $60 billion which the panel was about to recover.”
Ojaomo said the presidential panel made effort to recover the funds but the attorney-general of the federation took over the case.
He also accused Exxonmobil of failing to remit royalties to the federal government.