Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has revealed that $3 billion was stolen in the Strategic Alliance Contracts with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Nigerian Production Development Company, under former President Goodluck Jonathan administration.
He made the disclosure yesterday at the State House in Abuja, during the 7th Presidential Quarterly Business Forum for Private Sector Stakeholders, saying the amount was “almost a tenth of the nation’s reserves.” “I’m sure many of us are familiar with the so-called strategic alliance contracts with the NNPC and NDPC, the promoters of the companies made away with close to 3billion US dollars, almost a tenth of our reserves at one point!
“There is no way if someone made away with that amount, a tenth of your reserves, that there won’t be a major economic shock! If we don’t deal with it and talk about it, how do we really discuss our economy in any real honest way with a view to ensuring that these things do not happen again?”
Osinbajo further quipped Restating his earlier position, the VP said, “in one single transaction, a few weeks to the 2015 elections, sums of a N100 billion and $289million were just fretted away by a few.” Osinbajo admitted that the present administration had not completely dealt with corruption as it had become so systemic that it is impossible to deal with it in one fell swoop. He said, in a situation where corruption fights back both internally and externally, the government has to be steadfast and strategic to win the battle.
