Govs, ministers implicated in trillion naira subsidy scam

FRESH facts emerging from the oil subsidy report submitted by the ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives last Wednesday revealed that some governors and serving ministers in the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan were among the beneficiaries of the subsidy. A member of the ad hoc committee, Honourable Ali Ahmad, who disclosed this in Ilorin at the weekend, said that the House of Representatives would debate the recommendations of the report on probe of the subsidy on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ali, who is representing Ilorin East and Ilorin South federal constituency in the House of Representatives, alleged that some powerful Nigerians in the nation’s oil industry were trying to use their influence in government to impeach the Speaker, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal, over the release of the report on oil subsidy probe. Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune in Ilorin at the weekend, Ahmad, who is also the chairman, House Committee on Justice, said the House would resist the move. “We learnt some of them have started mobilising against Tambuwal to impeach him, because they’ve seen he didn’t disturb us throughout the probe. And Tambuwal said the report will be debated live so that there is nothing hidden. “Remove Tambuwal or not, the House and Nigeria remain the same. Even Tambuwal is unremovable. You know he was not elected from outside. He is from inside,” he said. He disclosed that some serving governors and ministers were among other political office holders that benefitted from the oil subsidy regime, adding that the committee would reveal their names after the report had been adopted. “The oil business is like a secret society thing. If you don’t belong, you don’t belong. Oil industry is so small, but so powerful. I’m even surprised I haven’t started seeing advertorials here and there. They have lots of money and have nothing to do with it,” he said. Ahmad said the implementation of the report by the executive in the next three months would help to finally address standard pricing for petroleum products in the country, adding that Nigerians should have rest of mind, for once and for all. “Petroleum product should not be N60 today, N80 tomorrow by one government and another government comes with N100 or N140. We can achieve standard price on petroleum and that’s what this report is all about,” he said. He alerted Nigerians to the plan by the Federal Government to increase money spent on oil subsidy before the end of the year, saying, “FG doesn’t need to spend N888 billion in the budget for oil subsidy this year, but Sanusi Lamido has said that even the N888 billion will not be sufficient. They’ve started again and Nigerians should wake up. We are just in April and Lamido is saying that. So, it means we might see another one trillion or two trillion before the end of 2012.” Ahmad also advised that government should be serious and quick with the implementation of the report, cautioning that, “otherwise, it could take another two to three years.” He said the country did not need to advocate death penalty for corrupt officials, but emphasised the need by government to clean the system and have zero tolerance for corruption. “We should come out as a nation and say once you are accused of corruption, governments should stop dealing with you and you should step out of office and be treated as an outcast until the offence is thrashed out. And corruption cases should not last more than six months,” he said. He also cautioned against the plan by some powerful Nigerians to trivialise the report, saying that it behoves on the people and government to support the report because people had sacrificed a lot to get it out.