Former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, has demanded an independent audit of the business dealings between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Dangote Refinery, citing “murky” controversies surrounding the partnership.
Ezekwesili’s call comes after Dangote Refinery’s owner, Aliko Dangote, revealed that NNPCL’s equity in the refinery was capped at 7.2%, contradicting earlier reports of a 20% stake.
Accrding to Channels TV, NNPC confirmed the 7.2% stake, stating it decided not to invest further in the refinery.
Ezekwesili expressed concern over the lack of transparency and accountability in the deal, particularly given the government’s reported $3.3 billion loan from Afriexim-Bank to invest in the refinery.
She urged President Bola Tinubu to utilize the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency International to conduct an independent audit, ensuring public accountability and transparency in the oil and minerals sector.
Ezekwesili emphasized the need for clarity in the deal, citing her past efforts to promote transparency in the NNPC during her time in government.
“However, as more and more information filtered out from both parties, we can reasonably conclude that something seriously murky has gone on and needs to be fully unravelled for public accountability. And urgently, too,” she stated.
The former minister added, “How can a project that by all definition attained the stature of a ‘national interest project’ be marred in this depth of embarrassing controversy that is playing out in the full glare of the local and international investing community?
“Did the Nigerian government not tell us it borrowed $3.3bn from Afriexim-Bank to take a stake in the Dangote refinery?”
“When we were in government, I often told the NNPC leadership that they cannot carry on as though there is a ‘Federal Republic of the NNPC’ just because they think of themselves as ‘the goose that lays the golden egg’.
“The opacity of the NNPC was the reason we took great delight in designing the multi-stakeholders Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency International in those early 2000s that I pioneered as Chairperson.
“We went above global minimum voluntary standards of transparency requirements by entrenching ours in an Act that established NEITI as the transparency regulator of the oil and minerals sector,” she explained.
She called on President Bola Tinubu “to immediately use the instrumentality of NEITI to launch an independent audit of the Dangote refinery-NNPC transaction to offer the public the true state of play.”