Editor’s note: The richest oil blocks in
Nigeria are owned by a few dozen people while half of the 160 million
Nigerians live on less than S1 dollar daily. In this piece by Obinna
Akukwe, he explains how our past leaders started the process of oil
block sharing in the country and how it works.
L-R: IBB, Late Sani Abacha and Olusegun Obasanjo
The
opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only, and do
not necessarily represent those of Naij.com’s editors or other
contributors.
Story Highlights
- Discretionary allocation of oil blocks.
- The
oil block national cake sharing fiesta could take twists according to
the mood of the Commander-in-chief at the particular time. - The process of sharing Nigeria’s oil block national cake.
- Investigations into the activities in this sector are futile.
- The regime of President Goodluck is not showing any signs of changing the status quo.
(Nigerian
Bulletin)- The process of sharing Nigeria’s oil block national cake is
as fraudulent now as when Ibrahim Babangida started the process of
discretionary allocation of oil blocks to indigenous firms.
Discretionary
allocation of oil blocks entails that a president can reward a mistress
who performs wonderfully with an oil block with capacity for cumulative
yield of over $20 billion dollars without recourse to any process
outside of manhood attachments. Babangida, Abacha, Abdulsalami and
Obasanjo awarded discretionary oil blocks to friends, associates, family
members, party chieftains, security chiefs and all categories of
bootlickers, spokespersons and cult members without any laid down
procedures.
The recipients of such oil blocks will get funds from
ever willing offshore financiers and partners to graciously settle the
benefactors, the awarders, facilitators and the Commander-in-Chief
through fronts. These settlements mostly paid into foreign accounts runs
into hundreds of millions of dollars according to the potential yield
of the block. Sometimes, the awarder (sharer of national cake and direct
intermediaries) demand additional stakes in the bidding company. The
awarder sends fronts as part of the directorship and management of the
bidding firms without leaving a link to them. That is how the oil block
national cake is distributed to a few Nigerians.
Signature
bonuses which are paid when an investor successfully bids, wins and
signs agreement with the petroleum ministry, running into tens of
millions and sometimes hundreds of millions of naira ,is often waived
off. There is actually no waiver; rather a diversion of what would have
been paid to government t coffers is paid into private purse as
appreciation gifts. That is why those in the Petroleum Ministry dread
retirement as though it signifies going to hell fire. No matter how
little your influence, something substantial must enter your hands
especially in hard currency. The nation loses billions of dollars in
diverted revenue whenever any round of auction occurs.
OML
110 with high yield OBE oil fields was given Cavendish Petroleum owned
by Alhaji Mai Daribe, the Borno Patriarch in 1996 by Sanni Abacha. OBE
oil field has estimated over 500 million barrels of oil. In layman’s
language and using average benchmark of $100 dollars per barrel,
translates to $50 billion dollars worth of oil reserve. When you remove
the taxes, royalties and sundry duties worth about 60% of the reserve
payable over time you get about $20billion dollars worth of oil in the
hands of a family.
OPL 246 was awarded to SAPETRO, a company
owned by General Theophilus Danjuma, by Sanni Abacha in 1998. Akpo
condensate exports about 300,000 barrels of crude daily.
OML 112
and OML 117 were awarded to AMNI International Petroleum Development
Company owned by Colonel Sanni Bello in 1999. Sanni Bello is an inlaw to
Abdulsalami Abubakar, former Head of State of Nigeria.
OML 115,
OLDWOK Field and EBOK field was awarded to Alhaji Mohammed Indimi from
Niger State. Indimi is an inlaw to former Military President Ibrahim
Babangida.
OML 215 is operated by Nor East Petroleum Limited owned by Alhaji Saleh Mohammed Gambo.
OML 108 is operated by Express Petroleum Company Limited is owned by Alhaji Aminu Dantata.
OML II3 allocated to Yinka Folawiyo Pet Ltd is owned by Alhaji W.I. folawiyo.
ASUOKPU/UMUTU
marginal oil fields is operated by Seplat Petroleum. Seplat is owned by
Prince Nasiru Ado Bayero, cousin to the Central Bank Governor Lamido
Sanusi. This oil field has the capacity of 300,000 barrels of oil daily.
This translates to $30million dollars daily at average benchmark of
$100 dollars per barrel. Deducting all sundry taxes, royalties etc ,
this field can yield $12billion dollars daily for the owners.
Intel
owned by Atiku, Yarádua and Ado Bayero has substantial stakes in
Nigeria’s oil exploration industry both in Nigeria and Principe and Sao
Tome.
AMNI owns two oil blocks OML 112 and OML 117 which it runs
Afren plc and Vitol has substantial stakes in oil blocks. Afren plc is
operating EBOK oil fields in OML 67. Vitol lifts 300,000 barrels of
Nigerian oil daily. Rilwanu Lukman, former OPEC Chairman has stakes in
all these named three companies.
OPL 245 was awarded to Malabu
Oil& Gas Company by Sanni Abacha. Dan Etete, Abacha’s oil minister
owns Malabu Oil. In 2000, Vice President Atiku Abubakar convinced
Obasanjo to revoke
OPL 245 given to Malabu Oil. Etete had earlier
rejected Atiku’s demand for substantial stakes in the high yield OPL
245 and it attracted the venom of Ota Majesty who revoked the licence.
However, in 2006, Obasanjo had mercy on Dan Etete and gave him back his
oil block worth over $20 billion dollars.
OPL 289 and OPL 233 was
awarded during Obasanjo era to Peter Odili fronts, Cleanwater
Consortium, consisting of Clenwater Refinery and RivGas Petroleum and
Gas Company. Odili’s brother in law, Okey Ezenwa manages the consortium
as Vice Chairman.
OPL 286 is managed by Focus Energy in
partnership with BG Group, a British oil concern. Andy Uba has stakes in
Focus Energy and his modus operandi is such that you can never see his
name in any listings yet he controls OPL and OML through proxies.
OPL
291 was awarded to Starcrest Energy Nigeria Limited, owned by Emeka
Offor by Obasanjo . Immediately after the award, Starcrest sold the oil
block to Addax Petroleum Development Company Limited (ADDAX) Addax paid
Sir Emeka Offor a farming fee of $35million dollars and still paid the
signature bonus to the government. Emeka Offor still retains stake in
ADDAX operations in Nigeria.
Mike Adenuga’s Conoil is the oldest
indigenous oil exploration industry in Nigeria. Conoil has six oil
blocks and exports above 200,000 barrels of crude daily.
The oil
block national cake sharing fiesta could take twists according to the
mood of the Commander-in –Chief at the particular time. In 2006,
Obasanjo revoked OPL 246 which Abacha gave to Danjuma because he refused
to support the tenure elongation bid of the Ota Majesty. In 2000,
Obasanjo had earlier revoked OPL 241 given to Dan Etete under the advice
Atiku. However, when the Obasanjo-Atiku faceoff started, the Ota
Majesty made a u-turn and handed back the oil block to Etete.
During
the time of Late President Yarádua , a panel headed by Olusegun
Ogunjana was set up to investigate the level of transparency in the
award of oil blocks. The panel recommended that 25 oil blocks awarded by
the Obasanjo be revoked because the manner they were obtained failed to
meet the best practices in the industry. Sadiq Mahmood, permanent
secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum endorsed the report to then
president with all its recommendations. As a result of the report
Yarádua revoked eleven oil blocks.
In April 2011 Mike Adenuga
attempted to buy Shell’s OML 30 for $1.2 billion dollars. The Minister
for Petroleum and Nigeria’s most powerful woman refused the sale of the
OML30 to Adenuga citing national interest. This block was later sold to
Heritage Oil for $800 million dollars eleven months later.
This
oil block business is so lucrative that Danjuma’s Sapetro divested of
its investment in Akpo condensate for $1billion dollars. This business
is second to none in Nigeria. That is why any attempt to investigate the
activities in this sector will always be futile. The money is so much
that they give bribes in millions of dollars. A birthday gift or child
naming gift from an oil block owner to a government official could be as
paltry as $2million dollars, and if the official’s father died, the
condolence gift could reach mere $3 million dollars. When they want to
bribe legislators, it is in millions of dollars and any ongoing
investigation ends within weeks. They are so confident that with excess
money they can buy up Nigeria and they are succeeding. In the name of
competitive bidding, which Obasanjo introduced in 2005, Officials bring
companies overnight and through processes best described as secretive
and voodooist they award blocks to party faithful, fronts and phoney
companies.
During the third term agenda, Obasanjo was deceived
that the allocation of oil block to party faithfuls is to fund the third
term agenda. With the failure of the third term, the beneficiaries went
home with their fortunes and thanked God or Allah for buttering their
bread. Senator Andy Uba co ordinate the award of the last rounds of oil
block by Obasanjo in 2005 and 2007. The then minister of petroleum,
Edwin Daukoru was a mere errand boy who took instructions from the
presidential aide.
The regime of President Goodluck is not
showing any signs of changing the status quo. Controversies have trailed
the activities of the Minister of Petroleum and many players in the
Industry accuse her of demanding stakes from every oil deal. It is hoped
that President Goodluck Jonathan will remember his transformational
promise to Nigerians and endeavour to face the hawks in the oil
industry. The angst in the air is so much that if this monster of
illegal allocation of oil block is not addressed, the much touted
revolution could begin all of a sudden and all who condoned this
illegality at the expense of hungry Nigerians may have nowhere to hide.
The
religious leaders should tell these oil block beneficiaries, awarders,
fronts, brokers and all involved in short changing the Nigerian people
to find means or returning all these back to the Nigerian people,
through massive development projects. The voice of impoverished
Nigerians is crying daily and if care is not taken the God who delivered
Nigeria from Abacha dark days will visit them with calamities untold.
With the rot in this oil block awarding system and other loot all over
the Nigerian nation, something worse than revolution may happen.
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