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.
Culled from How Babangida, Abubakar, Abacha, Obasanjo Shared Nigeria’s Oil Blocks – Written by Obinna Akukwe
