Diezani Allison-Madueke has defended her decision to transfer the ownership of four oil blocs valued at over USD$15.72 trillion.

Defiant Nigerian Petroleum Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke has defended her decision to transfer the ownership of four oil blocs owned by the federal government through the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited to a company owned by her and run by Mr. Jide Omokore, Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept. The oil blocs are valued at over USD$15.72 trillion.

The minister’s defence of the flagrant looting of the nation’s commonwealth is coming barely 24 hours after a group of anti-corruption civil society groups petitioned the country’s now crippled anti-graft police, the EFCC to probe allegations bordering on the dubious secret transfer of the oil blocs. The NGOs petition was based on the action of a group of Delta state indigenes under the aegis of Restoration Niger Delta which had in a petition to the National Assembly accused the oil minister of secretly ceding the oil blocs to her company managed by Omokore.



Sensing that the issues will not be buried easily like her previous deals, iReports-ng.com gathered that the oil minister ordered her errand boy, who is the Group Managing Director GMD of NNPC, Engr. Andrew Yakubu to defend the deal. As a result, the GMD in a letter written and dated 30th April, 2013 to Senate Committees on Upstream and Downstream flayed the groups for raising allegations of impropriety against the Almighty Minister.

Inside sources in NNPC who are angry with what the minister has turned the organisation to told iReports-ng.com that already a whooping N5o million has been dished out to about five national newspapers in Nigeria to give the minister’s defence of the deal prominence in their papers tomorrow, Thursday May 2. ” I can tell you that the letter which is yet to get to the two Senate Committees we addressed it to has been leaked to some five newspaper editors in Abuja today so that they can help us put the story on the front pages of their newspapers tomorrow”, one of our reliable sources in NNPC disclosed.

iReports-ng.com gathered that a number of newspaper editors and publishers have been highly compromised by the oil minister and as a result, any negative report against the minister, her ministry or agencies under her is forbidden in their newspapers. Some recalcitrant reporters and editors were said to have either lost their jobs or gotten queries on account of this standing order.

In her letter of defence to the Senate Committees obtained by iReports-ng.com from a top official in NNPC, the minister said “We are very mindful of the objectives of the Bureau for Public Procurement and the scope of application of the Public Procurement Act and we wish to state that the Strategic Alliance Agreement entered into with the Atlantic Energy Drilling Concept Limited does not fall within the purview of the Public Procurement Act.”

Still defending the multi-trillion dollars oil deal, Allison-Madueke said “On the Petitioners allegation that the Strategic Alliance Agreement violates the Oil Industry guidelines, obfuscated as the allegation is, it is instructive to note that this transaction was not a bid process for the allocation of oil blocks. Therefore, the oil industry guidelines were not violated. In fact, the Agreement is in furtherance of the Federal Government’s objective of funding cash call obligations from alternative sources such as service contracts, Production Sharing Contracts and Alternative Funding arrangements as currently being practiced in the traditional Joint Venture operations.”