Ribadu report: Group calls on the President to Fire Petroleum, Finance ministers

Minister of Finance, Okonjo Iweala; and Petroleum Minister Diezani Madueke

President Goodluck Jonathan has been urged to sack the Petroleum Resources and Finance Ministers, Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke, and Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala respectively, following the controversy generated by disclosures from the Nuhu Ribadu led Petroleum Revenue Task Force (PRTF), which implicated government officials.
The president has also been charged to fire the boards and management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Addressing reporters in Abuja Wednesday, the National Convener of United Action for Democracy (UAD) Mr. Jaye Gaskia, and leader of the group further threatened to mobilize Nigerians to stage a mass protest in the city of Abuja should the president fail to heed to their demands.

The Ribadu panel revealed theft in the country’s oil and gas sector to the tune of over $29 billion, price fixing and contract scams with additional $6 billion lost yearly as well as 250,000 barrels of crude daily over the previous ten years.

Gaskia decried that Nigeria lost an equivalent of the total budget for 4 years in the past ten years.

“We are worried and concerned enough as patriotic citizens of our country to reach the conclusion that something drastic, immediate, and far-reaching must be urgently done to end all forms of impunity in the governance of our country, and begin the process of salvaging Nigeria. “ We declare without fear or fervor that with the campaign tagged, ‘End Impunity Now’ we insist that because of the endemic nature and systemic character of corruption in the country the process of ending impunity begins immediately with the tackling of corruption.”

“And we had gone on to make some key demands including: sacking of the boards and management of the institutions of government implicated in the mind boggling and monumental fraud in the management of the fuel subsidy regime for 2011, a fraud which as at the time of the various probes amounted to over 1.7 trillion naira, and just about 45 percent of the 2011 federal budget. We have been clear about the fact that the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources and its minister, as well as the NNPC, DPR, PPMC, PPPRA, bore direct and greatest responsibility in the monumental fraud”, he stated.

According to him, “We had also stated clearly that given that manifestation of the complete lack of coordination in the economy and among relevant agencies and institutions with respect to the management of the subsidy fund, combined with the fact that monies were signed and paid out from the Federation Account without the knowledge or authorization of the minister of finance, who is also the coordinating minister of the economy that her office bore indirect responsibility for the fraud and barefaced looting of the economy.”

“We had thus demanded the sacking of all officials so implicated, and the trial of those with cases to answer. Additionally we had demanded that all subsidy thieves and those who aided and abetted them should be speedily brought to trial and looted funds recovered.”

He said the group has maintained its stand that the president should guarantee quick prosecution and conviction of indicted oil marketers and the officials that work together with them to steal from the oil revenue and other sources with all their names published for the members of the public to know them and their level of involvements.
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