AUDIO:The $3 million conversation between Farouk Lawan and Femi Otedola

Channels Television has obtained an audio recording purported to be part of the conversation between Honorable Farouk Lawan and Mr Femi Otedola over the $3million bribery allegation scandal.

Honorable Lawan has been invited by the House Committee on Ethics, investigating this scandal and he was grilled behind closed door.

Meanwhile, Femi Otedola has been invited by the same committee and expected to appear tomorrow morning Tuesday 3rd of July.

Edo Guber: ACN Warns Against Rigging

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has warned that any attempt to rig the July 14 gubernatorial election in Edo State will trigger a chain of cataclysmic reactions, the end of which no one can predict.

In a statement issued in Lagos, yesterday, by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said that the warning became necessary in view of the desperation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to capture Edo State at all cost, first as a trophy for its new Chairman who is bent on ensuring his party wins the first election under his chairmanship, and also as a foothold for the President’s presumed ambition for 2015.

It said events leading to the election had shown that the PDP was bent on creating an atmosphere that would be hostile to the holding of a free, fair and transparent poll.

ACN, therefore, called on its members and supporters in Edo State to resist any attempt by the PDP to rig the forthcoming poll, and said that they must not only turn out en masse to vote for Governor Adams Oshiomhole, on the basis of his performance in office, but must also stay behind until the votes had been counted and the result announced, contrary to the ‘vote and go’ rigging strategy of the PDP.

‘’In the years since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, the PDP has evolved from bare-faced rigging on election day to a new system in which the ruling party, in collusion with malleable and unpatriotic security agencies, make free and fair elections impossible by intimidating the opposition and instigating violence ahead of voting, thus paving the way for the imposition of a ‘curfew’ on election day that will ensure voters only come out to vote and return home, handing the PDP and its cohorts in INEC and security agencies a carte blanche to determine the outcome of the voting.

‘’Already, the trend is glaring: At least two attempts have been made on the life of Governor  Oshiomhole, first when a truck rammed his convoy and killed many after narrowly missing him, and then last week when suspected political thugs attacked the Governor, top government officials and ACN stalwarts in Usen town.

‘’The strategy is simple: Go after the Governor and scare off his teeming supporters, and then hope they will fight back, thus precipitating chaos that will then be capitalised upon by the PDP federal government to declare a curfew, at best, and a state of emergency, at worst. But while we urge our members and supporters to be peaceful and to resist playing into the hands of the PDP, they must be vigilant; they must know that it is against the Electoral Act for anyone to ask them to leave the polling station after voting. They must not leave until the votes have been counted and the results announced,’’ the party said.

ACN said that what happened in 2011 must not be allowed to repeat itself, when gullible international observers, after witnessing a seemingly orderly process in which patriotic voters queued and cast their votes, then returned to their hotels to declare the elections free and fair, without witnessing the events at the collation centres where most of the rigging took place.

Otedola sues Tambuwal, Lawan, others for N250bn

L-R: Otedola, Lawan and Tambuwal
| credits: File copy

The $620,000 bribery scandal involving a federal legislator, Farouk Lawan and businessman, Femi Otedola, has entered a new phase with Otedola asking a court to order Lawan and three others to pay him N250bn in damages.

The suit coincides with petitions to the Inspector-General of Police by Lawan’s lawyers demanding a face-to-face confrontation between the lawmaker and the businessman.

The amount, Otedola says, will compensate him for the loss of patronage he has suffered as a result of an alleged intimidation by the National Assembly.

Listed as defendants in the suit number FCT /3839/2012 and filed on June 28, 2012 at the Abuja High Court, are Lawan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal; the National Assembly and its Clerk.

There had been a raging scandal in which Otedola, who is the Chairman of Zenon Oil and Gas Limited, claimed that he paid $620,000 as bribe to Lawan, the suspended Chairman of the House Ad hoc Committee that probed the management of fuel subsidy regime in the country.

While Otedola said that he paid the bribe under pressure, Lawan claimed that he obtained the bribe in order to expose the businessman.

The businessman’s company which had been removed from the list of subsidy thieves on the request of Lawan has, however, been re-listed by the House following the outbreak of the bribery scandal.

Otedola, who is suing along with Zenon as the first plaintiff, said in his 28-paragraph statement of claim that the re-listing of Zenon on the list of indicted companies was an act of conspiracy.

He claimed that the alleged conspiracy by both Tambuwal and the National Assembly was calculated to embarrass him and his company.

In his statement of claim, Otedola states, “Notwithstanding the on-going Police investigations and the first defendant’s admission of receiving money from the second plaintiff, the second and fourth defendants conspired to relist the name of the first plaintiff to the list of indicted companies, to embarrass the plaintiffs and their corporate and business image.

“The plaintiffs shall contend at trial that the conspiracy by the second and fourth defendants (Tambuwal and the National Assembly respectively) to re-list the name of the first plaintiff on the list of companies indicted by the ad-hoc committee is without basis given that the committee’s finding was arrived at without proper verification of documents submitted by the plaintiffs to aid their enquiry.”

Otedola narrated how Lawan allegedly demanded $3m bribe in the course of the committee’s investigation and how he made several other intimidating calls that Zenon would be included on the list of indicted companies if he failed to comply.

He said the lawmaker did not relent in his demand for the bribe despite telling him that there was no basis for Zenon to be indicted by the committee.

He added that he later took to the advice of some unnamed security agencies which asked him to play along with Lawan.

He states further, “In the course of carrying out his assignment, the first defendant (Lawan) as head of the ad hoc committee set up by the second and third defendants contacted the second plaintiff (Otedola) and informed him that the first plaintiff ( Zenon) was going to be indicted by the ad hoc committee for purchasing foreign exchange from the Central Bank of Nigeria without importing petroleum products unless the plaintiff parted with a bribe of $3m.

“The first defendant continued to make harassing phone calls to the second plaintiff calculated at intimidating the plaintiffs to meet the unlawful demand of the first defendant for bribe

“The second plaintiff faced with the first defendant’s unrelenting barrage of intimidating calls became distressed and contacted the security agencies to report the first defendant’s conduct

“The plaintiffs were advised by the security agencies to play along and hand over marked notes to the first defendant and his cohorts for the purpose of gathering evidence of their nefarious activities.”

In the purported sting operation, Otedola states that out of the $620,000 bribe, $500,000 was taken personally by Lawan on April 24, and that $120,000 was handed over to the clerk of the committee, Boniface Emenalo.

He also says that he would produce “all call logs and audio-visual records of conversation and/or meetings” held with Lawan to prove his case.

He states, “On April 24, 2012, the sum of $500,00 was handed over to the first defendant by the second plaintiff.

“At the request of the first defendant, a further sum of $120, 000 was handed over to Boniface Emenalo by the second defendant.

“On the morning of the April 24, 2012, the first defendant persisted in making intimidating phone calls to the plaintiffs harassing them to pay up the balance of $2.380m.

“As a result of the distress caused to the plaintiffs by the first defendant’s persistent calls, the plaintiffs reported the matter to the police which invited the first defendant and the plaintiffs for investigations.”

Otedola, dissatisfied with the reappearance of Zenon on the list of indicted companies, has therefore made the claims against the defendants “jointly and severally”,

“The sum of N100 billion against the defendants as general damages for the acts of intimidation; loss of goodwill and patronage, occasioned by the acts of the defendants; and a separate “sum of N150 billion against the defendants as exemplary damages for their oppressive and arbitrary action.”

He states, “The action and conduct of the defendants were oppressive and arbitrary and thereby also resulting to the plaintiffs suffering substantial loss to their reputation, goodwill and business.”

Hearing date has not been fixed for the case and it has not been assigned to any judge.

In a reaction on Sunday, the House said that it was ready for Otedola and would assemble a legal team to meet him in court.

However, it clarified that no court summons had been served on it as at Sunday (yesterday).

The Chairman, House Committee on Media, Public Affairs, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, noted that as a Nigerian, Otedola was free to express his views or take action on any issues he strongly disapproves of.

“He is free to go to court; he is a Nigerian. We are ready for him and he will hear from us when we receive any court summons.

“However, as we speak, I am not aware of any court action taken against the House. This is weekend; but he will hear from us when we get the summons”, Mohammed added.

My full bribery saga story, by Farouk - Daily Trust

Rep. Farouk Lawan has for the first time given his account of what transpired between him and billionaire businessman Femi Otedola in the infamous bribery saga over fuel subsidy probe. 

In two separate letters to the Inspector-General of Police dated June 22, Lawan insisted through his lawyers that he played along with Otedola so as to expose how oil marketers were trying desperately to bribe his committee. 

Lawan is accused of collecting $620,000 in bribes to clear Otedola’s companies in the probe report.

But Otedola said he ran a sting operation to entrap Lawan and had video-taped the lawmaker collecting the bribes.

One of the letters is from Mike Ozekhome’s chambers, while the other is from Rickey Tarfa’s chambers, though the contents are similar.

The letter from Ozekhome said it was Otedola who first made contact with Lawan, “literally constituting himself as an internal consultant to the committee, providing insider information on the fuel subsidy scheme…. It was when his companies were indicted that he became desperate and resorted to cheap blackmail.”

Lawan said the bribery saga began when on April 21 Otedola surfaced in his (Lawan’s) Protea Hotel room in Abuja with bundle of documents “which he claimed showed that one of his oil companies, Zenon Oil, already indicted in the report, did not participate in the fuel subsidy scam.”

The letter said Lawan took the documents, but Otedola then offered him $250,000 to ensure the companies were dropped from the indictment list.

“This was in the evening of Monday the 23rd of April, 2012, a few days before the report (was) to be debated in the House but few days after the final report had actually been laid before the House on 17th of April, 2012,” the letter said.

Next, Otedola called Lawan severally and pleaded with him to come to his house to collect more documents that would show the innocence of his oil companies in the subsidy fraud, the letter said.

Lawan “played along” and visited Otedola on April 22 where Otedola gave him more documents and additional $250,000 bribe. He also offered to give $3 million.

The letter said “as soon as he collected the total sum of $500,000”, Lawan wrote a letter at 3.47am on April 24 to chairman of the House committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes informing of the bribe “attempt” and “attaching” the amount collected.

“Our client maintains that he opted to collect the money to keep as exhibit because of desperation, hostility and veil threats,” the letter added. “Our client says that on one night alone, he received about 50 missed calls from Mr. Otedola as he deliberately kept away from his undue pressure.”

Lawan also said he verbally reported efforts to bribe his committee to EFCC chairman Ibrahim Lamorde on April 20 “though he did not mention Mr. Otedola specifically.”

On how Lawan removed Otedola’s companies from his report after collecting the bribe, the letter said this was done “based on fresh available evidence later presented by Mr. Otedola.”

In the letter, Lawan argued that he was the first to bring the bribe matter to public limelight and to the Police, which is an indication of his innocence. He also denied media reports to the effect that he stuffed some of the bribe dollars in his cap, saying that he did not wear a cap on both occasions that met Otedola.

There was no immediate comment from Otedola on the contents of Lawan’s letters to the Police.

Otedola is scheduled to appear before a House of Representatives committee probing the matter on Tuesday.

Pastor Bakare Hits Harder: “Down, Down Jonathan”

Pastor Tunde Bakare

By SaharaReporters, New york

Fiery Pastor Tunde Bakare, who was last week declared wanted by the State Investigation Bureau over a sermon proclaiming President Jonathan as determined to bankrupt Nigeria, today hit even harder in his latest sermon.

Mr. Bakare, who heads the Latter Rain Assembly, began on a musical note, imploring the congregation to join him in singing a popular Pentecostal retreat song that inserted “Jonathan” into the lyrics.

“Let us carry Jesus up and throw Jonathan away. Up, up Jesus; down, down Jonathan,” the pastor proclaimed, warming into his sermon this Sunday.

Wanted by the SIB over a recent sermon, Pastor Bakare told his congregation that the letter inviting him to attest to the rippling sermon he gave last week arrived while he was
away in Ukraine. He said he had defied the advice of many who counseled that he should not return when he was being sought by the government’s security department.

“I received lots of calls and I was advised not to come to Nigeria until Monday, but I have nothing [to hide],” Mr. Bakare announced, narrating his experience of last week.

The pastor also reacted to the news of a N25 billion lawsuit reportedly filed against him by a firm owned by oil magnate Femi Otedola over the pastor’s statement accusing Otedola of fraud in last week’s sermon.

“I am now in the country for anyone that is looking for me,” said Mr. Bakare, adding, “Let him bring his lawsuit so that we can put his integrity to the test.” Mr. Bakare stated, “He wants to see the lawyer in me.”

Mr. Bakare also announced that his church was planning a prayer event for the nation this July, adding that the fraudulent party and people in power would be swept away for a new dawn in the nation, come Nigeria’s next national anniversary in October.

“I invite the South, the North, the East and the West on the 22nd of July to join us in sweeping off the frauds in the government of Nigeria. Only the foolish will wait for 2015 or 2020. We are throwing the corrupt people out of power. July will be intense for them, August will be more intense for them and September will be the darkest night that will usher in the new dawn for Nigeria,” he declared as he raised his voice.

Last Sunday, Pastor Tunde Bakare had claimed in his sermon that President Goodluck Jonathan’s destiny was to run the nation bankrupt. The SIB had reportedly sought to invite Mr. Bakare for questioning, but he was away in Ukraine as the letter arrived. The SIB’s invitation has been widely perceived as an attempt to arrest and detain Pastor Bakare who was a vice presidential candidate to General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd).

Pastor Bakare gave assurances today that he did not flee the country to evade detectives, adding that he was back now and ready to receive those seeking him.

BOMBSHELL :7 Years After Crash of BELLVIEW WAS BOMBED–Red Cross Chief

Seven years after the crash of Bellview Boeing 737 flight 210 plane at Lisa, Ogun State,  in which 117 persons died, it has been revealed that the aircraft was bombed. The  Abuja-bound aircraft that took off from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, on October 22, 2005, crashed few minutes after it was airborne. 

Click to continue reading…

A top official of the Red Cross, Professor Charles Ohiku, made the startling revelation in an exclusive interview with Sunday Sun in Lagos. Prof Ohiku, who led the Red Cross rescue team at the crash scene, said that unlike the recent Dana plane crash, no human skull was found at the scene of the Bellview crash because it was blown up. 

“I headed the rescue team at the Bellview plane crash site at Lisa, Ogun State. That plane was blown. That is why the probe report can never come out till tomorrow.  “That plane didn’t just drop from the sky. By the time we got there the following morning, we could not find even one human head.

“You know, at the Dana plane crash site some incomplete human bodies and heads were recovered from the crash site. But in the case of Bellview crash there was no single head or a skull. Quote me. “I was there as a representative of the Nigerian Red Cross, and I can tell you categorically that no single skull was seen or picked up in a crash of that magnitude and the number of passengers involved.

“How can anyone explain the fact that with 117 passengers and crew members in the plane no single head or skull was found during rescue operation, even though there was no survivor?” Asked why anyone would bomb the plane at that time when there was no Boko Haram or any other serious security threat  to the country, Prof Ohiku said some people might have felt that somebody in that plane, who was considered  too close to the President at that time, was being  groomed to take over from him.

He recalled that Dr Iyabo Obasanjo, who was then Commissioner for Health in Ogun State, gave his team a note to the General Hospital and, “then we packed them (mangled bodies) in a case, the one they use in packing corpses.” The Red Cross chief was emphatic that there was no single head, “even as strong as the skull is,” when his team got to the scene.

“My parents had been at Lisa 10 years before that crash, so immediately the plane crashed I was one of those who got there first in the morning. And many people didn’t know where Lisa was before the crash that brought the quiet village to limelight.”

He continued: “Why have they not released the black box findings? They will not do so even till tomorrow. And you all know the personalities in that plane. One of them was Waziri Mohammed, chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) then. Majority of the people on that plane came from Ota Farm to board the plane. They came from Ota Farm to Lagos to board that plane at Ikeja Airport, and the plane landed at Lisa, Ogun State, imagine that.

“The general rumour at that time, mark my word, was that Obasanjo was preparing that very man, the NRC chairman, for the presidency. We found legs, hands and some other human parts, but no head. I would like somebody to explain how that came about,” Prof Ohiku said.

Among those who died in the crash were Chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), chairman of the defunct People’s Bank, Mrs Maria Sokenu; and the Post Master-General of the 

Federation, Alhaji Abubakar Argungu.

Also on the list of casualties were the Personal Assistant to the Post Master-General, Mr S. Eneware; chairman of Nigerian States and Local Government SMEs, Mr J. Agharitte; and Mr  L. Adele, a South African television producer.

THE BIG KEROSENE FRAUD: Depot owners buy at N41, sell @ N125

LAGOS — Nigerians have been forced to pay as much as N150/litre of kerosene instead of the government subsidised rate of N50 because the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, chose to sell kerosene to depot owners rather than retail outlet owners as required of it.

A Report by the Technical Committee on Payment of Fuel Subsidies, submitted to Mr President and exclusively obtained by Vanguard, revealed that the NNPC flouted the policy on its monopoly to import kerosene, which comes in as Dual Purpose Kerosene, DPK, at subsidized rate to serve the masses.

Rather than deliver the product to retail outlet owners so that it could benefit the masses for which it was being subsidized, the NNPC, instead, chose to sell it for patronage, or what the committee described as “rent” to depot owners.

The struggle to buy Kerosene, an household commodity for cooking, becomes more challenging even at a NNPC petrol Station in Lagos. Photo by Lamidi Bamidele

The depot owners who got the product at N40.90/L ex-depot price, in turn sold it to marketers and retail owners at between N115 and N125/L depending on the operator, a development that led to the masses buying the product at 300 per cent increase at N150/L instead of the recommended price of N50/L.

“The distribution of DPK which was being imported solely by NNPC was skewed in favour of depot owners who have no retail outlets. Two-thirds of the kerosene sold by NNPC between 2009 and 2011 was sold to depot owners and “middle men” who in turn sold the product to owners of retail outlets at inflated prices of between N115.00 and N125.00 per litre (compared to the ex depot price of N40.90), leaving consumers to pay higher prices than the N50.00 per litre directed by Government,” the report said.

It added: “For several years now, the country has been incurring huge subsidy bills for kerosene and its citizens are not receiving the benefit – instead the country has been financing “rent” for the middlemen.”

NNPC has many mega stations and retail outlets

MOMAN – is the Major Marketers Association of Nigeria, which members include Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc; Total Plc; MRS Oil Plc (formerly Chenron Oil Nigeria); Forte Oil Plc (Formerly AP); Oando Oil Plc; and Conoil Plc. The association controls nine per cent of retail outlets with 2,453 owned by members

IPMAN – Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, own in joint venture with Purebond of UK, the Nigerian Independent Petroleum Company, NIPCP Plc, and has about 23,026 member retail outlets to control 85 per cent of the retail market.

DAPPMA – Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association are the owners of the tank farms and petroleum storage facilities and only 403 member outlets and controls only four per cent of the market. Yet, they got between 60 and 70 per cent of the kerosene.

Further investigations revealed that because kerosene comes in as DPK, the depot owners preferred to divert the product for aviation turbine kerosene, ATK, or Jet A1, to reap higher profits from the product as opposed to selling it as House Hold Kerosene, HHK, which the masses rely on for domestic energy to cook their foods and light their lanterns.

Yet, the NNPC collected the sum of N331.55billion as kerosene subsidy for 2011 alone, when  hardly any Nigerian could buy the product at N50/L.

This has remained since 2009, a situation that led to the acute scarcity of kerosene for the greater part of the last three years.

The report, which revealed how oil marketers and petroleum dealers allegedly perfected series of fraud through products imports that led to the payment of over N2 trillion as subsidy claims in 2011 alone, also showed that in all the established cases of malfeasance, the regulatory agencies colluded with the concerned parties to boycott due process for the importation of the particular product.

NNPC flouted presidential directive

In the case of kerosene, the situation was so bad that late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, on June 15, 2009, ordered the NNPC to stop making further deductions as claims for subsidy on kerosene.

“In spite of a directive issued by President Yar’Adua on June 15, 2009 that NNPC should cease subsidy claims on kerosene, PPPRA resumed the processing of kerosene subsidy claims in June 2011 and NNPC resumed the deduction of kerosene subsidy claims to the tune of N331 ,547,318,068.06 in 2011,” the report revealed.

The report noted that: “The current lack of regulation (of subsidy claims) has led to NNPC’s introduction of practices that are not permitted or recognised by the current PSF guidelines that if unchecked by NNPC’s internal control mechanisms may allow for significant leakages.”

Checking fraud through forensic audit

To discontinue the criminalities, the committee called for a forensic audit of the NNPC’s subsidy payment process. This it said, is because “while the committee conducted detailed reviews of several aspects of the subsidy payment process, it noted that the process for NNPC is significantly more complicated than the process for the private sector and would require a thorough forensic audit.”

It therefore urged the Federal Government to “appoint consultants to carry out the forensic audit of the NNPC subsidy claim process. This is without prejudice to the committee’s recommendations on the process from its high level review.”

It further recommended that such audit should cover, among others:

*Funding for subsidy paid to NNPC

*Process for determination of products imported by NNPC

*Documentation for NNPC’s transactions for imported petroleum products

*Verification of documentation with NNPC’s suppliers and other agencies involved in the discharge of petroleum products – e.g. DPR, PPPRA, Government auditors, independent inspectors, e.t.c.

*Review of documentation submitted to PPPRA by NNPC

*Review of PPPRA’s certification process for NNPC subsidy claims

*Reconciliation of the deducted subsidy claims from the proceeds of crude oil sales by NNPC to the subsidy claims certified by PPPRA.

Committee’s recommendations.

Since the poor Nigerians were obviously not getting the benefit of the huge cost to the nation in kerosene subsidy, the committee further urged the federal government to also:  Allow both private importers who meet the eligibility requirements of the PSF guidelines and NNPC to import kerosene and pay kerosene subsidy under the PSF.  The role of private importers in the distribution of the product should be monitored properly by PPPRA and DPR. Eliminate the current financing of rent for a few by restricting NNPC’s local distribution to only groups that own significant retail outlets – i.e. MOMAN, IPMAN and NNPC Retail at the approved ex-depot price.

The Committee recommends that NNPC’s roles in the downstream petroleum industry be regulated appropriately by the existing regulatory agencies in the industry i.e. PPPRA and DPR.

The Committee recommends that:

*PPPRA must always regulate and determine the quantity of products to be imported by NNPC in line with its mandate and the current allocation process for NNPC. All importation of products by NNPC (within or outside PPPRA approved quotas) must be approved by PPPRA. A rigorous process of volume control that will facilitate identification of red flags will reduce malpractices in subsidy claims.

*That accounting best practices should be adopted by NNPC to enable separate audit trails of sales proceeds of imported and locally refined petroleum products and to determine the cost of domestic refining of petroleum products.

*That Government should always give documented and clear directives to avoid ambiguity, indiscretion and to encourage compliance. Given the significant financial impact of the NNPC subsidy process on the finances of the nation, appropriate steps should be taken by Government to document and legalise the process for NNPC’s subsidy claims in a transparent and unambiguous manner.

*That the relevant Government agencies such as PPPRA and DPR in line with their mandates as regulators and others such as the Ministry of National Planning, Federal Bureau of Statistics e.t.c. using the information at their disposal on locally refined, imported and stored volumes of petroleum products should be mandated by Government to continually determine the nations’ daily consumption levels of petroleum products independent of the industry operators.

*The allocation of kerosene directly to marketers with retail outlets, specifically IPMAN, MOMAN and NNPC Retail based on the strength of their retail outlets. This will ensure that the impact of the subsidy will be felt by the masses. In addition, the permit to import DPK should be liberalized to include the marketers who meet the eligibility criteria under the PSF guidelines and the subsidy regulated under the PSF scheme as currently obtains for PMS.

In the long run, the option of using cooking gas should be explored. It is expected that the cost of subsidising kerosene would be saved if more Nigerians embrace the use of LPG. In addition, the Committee is unable to recommend payment of subsidy claims on DPK in view of the extant presidential directive of June 15, 2009.

The Committee

It would be recalled that the idea of the Technical Committee on Subsidy was hatched on February 28, 2012, and was meant to “review outstanding claims for fuel subsidies,” as fallout of the stakeholders’ meeting of the downstream petroleum sector.

The meeting was chired by the Coordinating Minister of the Economy/Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okojo-Iweala, who constituted the 10-man committee on April 17, 2012, headed by the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Access Bank Plc, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede.

The terms of reference included to authenticate the backlog of outstandingpayments of subsidy payments to marketers in 2011; verify the legitimacy of backlog of claims already submitted by marketers for 2011; and review any other pertinent issues that may rise from the exercise.

Other members included the Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Dr. Bright Okogu; Director General, Debt Management Office, Dr. Abraham Nwankwo; Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla; Executive Secretary, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPRA, Mr. Reginald Stanley.

Others were the Group Executive Director, Finance and Accounts, NNPC; and representatives of the CBN, Bankers Committee as well as major and independent marketers.

Culled: Vanguard