Ailing Ex Minister Diezani Madueke Back In The News For Allegedly Approving $24billion Crude Oil Swap Deal Without Formal Papers

Ailing former petroleum minister, Diezani Allison Madueke is back in the news.

And it is yet because of another not rosy reason.

Trending revelation have it that
So former Petroleum Resources Minister, Mrs. Diezano Allison-Madueke was so powerful that she approved a $24billion contract just like without signing any documents.

A one-time Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Austin Oniwon made this revealation on Tuesday that there was no existence of a formal letter between the NNPC and trading companies that lifted $24bn worth of crude oil from the country between 2011 and 2014.

While speaking before the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on Crude Oil Swap, Oniwo said that a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, merely granted the “extension” of an earlier contract.

Oniwo explained that the extension was not a formal contract before he (Oniwon) left office in 2012. saying: “There was an approval for the extension by the minister; I believe the records are with the NNPC”.

As a result of the failures of nations’s refineries to run, the NNPC resolved to exchange the crude (swap) for refined products through an arrangement with appointed crude trading firms.

The initial contract was signed between the NNPC and two crude traders, Duke Oil and Tranfigura in 2010 to last for one year- and it expired officially in 2011.

But Alison-Madueke reportedly went ahead to grant an extension of the contract without the NNPC formally signing another contract on the new (second) deal.

One of the lawmakers in the committee, Michael Enyong, was quoted to have said, “These companies had lifted crude worth $24bn before the contract was signed in 2014 and backdated to look like it was signed in 2011 when the first one expired.”

The committee had put Oniwon under pressure after he consistently told members that there was no “breach” in the exchange arrangements throughout his tenure.

When he was reminded that there were evidence indicating that the contract expired in 2011, but it continued to run till 2014, Oniwon replied that Alison-Madueke “approved” the extension.