Wanted: Clear Response to Allegations of Looting Against Obasanjo on PTDFgate By Senior Fyneface
As the Senate turns the heat on President Olusegun Obasanjo to explain how he mismanaged or rather diverted the monies of the Petroleum Development Trust Fund (PTDF) by approving projects which in addition to being outside the purview of the Fund could be described as mirage, the President has for the first time responded to clear his name. However, the level of illogicality and non-coherence of the arguments in the submission clearly show that the President intentional tried to dodge the questions he was supposed to provide answers to.
Rather than face the allegations of diversion of the funds of the PTDF, the President’s letter to the Senate Committee could best be described as sterile academic adventure packaged to confuse rather than help the Senate Committee in its investigation.
The President centered the argument of his over 10-page letter on the idea that whatever interpretation he gave to the PTDF Act, promulgated in 1973, was to make it amenable to the 21st Century without breaching the spirit and letter of the Act. What has the President’s ignorance of the generational gap in the tenets of the PTDF Act got to do with the matter on ground which touches the lives and souls of the battered Nigerian people especially the youths?
It was alleged with facts and figures that President Obasanjo diverted the resources of the PTDF to the running of the PDP particularly the funding of all the heinous crimes including killings committed before and during the 2003 general elections. The third term campaign was squarely funded from the PTDF accounts as alleged. Funds were taken from the PTDF accounts to pursue funny projects most of which are non-existent. These were substantial allegations which Nigerians expected a clear response from their leader.
The resources of the Fund cannot be properly accounted for since the President took direct charge of approving and releasing monies from the PTDF accounts. Most projects allegedly fully paid for by the PTDF cannot be seen anywhere in the country. And as if this was not enough crime, the President retroactively ratify some of the Fund’s expenses after the Senate Committee had started investigations into the alleged looting of the Fund as alleged by Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Nigerians expected their President to adequately address some of the direct allegations misappropriation in his submission to the investigating panel.
Noble as all the intended programmes real or imaginary allegedly funded from the PTDF accounts may sound, the issue remains: Did the President divert huge monies from the PTDF account by short-circuiting due process? It would have been very appropriate if both the President and the Management of the PTDF can publish the resources allocated for training for Nigerians both local and overseas since 1999. How many Nigerian universities, Polytechnics and colleges of education benefited from the PTDF Account and how much? The Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun which has become a far cry of its original glory, how much of PTDF’s money has gone in to salvage the institution?
The Obasanjo-led administration had some very noble ideas about how things can become better in Nigeria, this is true, but the often familiar gulf between good concept and their implementation which characterized the entire seven and half years of the administration has made it impossible for a single good concept to be translated into productive project for the benefit of the ordinary Nigeria people. It is unimaginable that President Obasanjo paid a whopping N250 million to Emmanuel Chambers of Chief Afe Babalola just for company registration. And the President was even proud to say in his letter to the Senate that he even slashed N50 million off from it original N300 million endorsed and brought to him by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.
To actually clear himself and convince Nigerians that he was wrongly accused of looting the funds of PTDF, President Obasanjo should ask the DPR to provide data on all the monies realized from oil block bidding rounds since 1999. The CBN should also disclose how much was paid into the PTDF Consolidated Account since 1999.
The President’s sole decision of paying 25 per cent of signature bonuses subject to maximum of $100 million per year is illegal. This is pure and simple.
Since the PTDF Act did not anticipate the magnitude of signature bonuses coming in, the 25 % or maximum of $100 million policy as presently operated by Obasanjo is against the law until the Act is amended.
A decision was taken in 2006 by the President that there should be a cap on the funding, this was because in 2005 there was a lot of bidding rounds that were never anticipated and it was discovered that the PTDF was expected to rake -in huge sums of money in foreign exchange for its Reserve Account.
According to the PTDF officials at the Senate Committee panel, “But the law had not been amended. The law says pay everything to the PTDF account, whatever the percentage. But even then the $100 million was not forthcoming even on the basis of funding approval; nothing has been given yet to the PTDF. Why I am saying all this is that I know the purpose of this investigation is to make the PTDF a better organisation to serve the nation, so all we have to do is to bring these things to your table so that it will assist your committee in making your recommendations."
Hear the President’s casual explanation as contained in his letter of misappropriation of over N20 billion:
On this PTDFgate, there are so many unanswered questions concerning diversion of funds by the President. For example, as at December 2005, PTDF had N20 billion and $150 million in fixed deposits, N533 million and $6.3 million in current accounts. Five months after only N12.9 billion remained of the N20 billion. How that money expended and what was happened to the foreign exchange component of the money?
The NA should call for the publication of the Auditor General’s report on the PTDF from January to June 2006. If nobody has anything to hide, let us make this particular report public because the VP had earlier alleged that report was quite revealing and that the truth of this whole matter may not come out without that report.
Were they efforts to retroactively ratify PTDF’s transactions after the Senate began its investigations. If yes, that in itself is an outright abuse of office and admission of wrong doings by the President.
No matter what the President has to say as explanation, an action that is ipso facto illegal, especially in matters of appropriation, which the Constitution placed in the domain of the National Assembly, cannot be justified or legalized by mere Federal Executive Council approval/ratification or high-handedness of the President who cannot be said to be above the laws of the land. The oba must dance naked.
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