A media group, Journalists for Democratic Rights, JORDER, has called on the Federal Government to set up an independent Judicial Panel of Enquiry to probe allegations of high level corruption in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, NNPC, and the World Bank operations in the county.
JORDER suggested names of credible legal practitioners that should be part of the panel to include, Mr Femi Falana, SAN, Professor Jibrin Ibrahim ay Olisa Agbakoba, SAN saying that Nigerians need not just a Panel of Enquiry, but the one that would command public respect.
A statement signed by the spokesman of JORDER, Mr. Akinwale Kasali notes that corruption is at the heart of Nigeria’s underdevelopment and the root cause of violence and extremism that have taken foothold in many parts of the country.
In a letter sent to the President Bola Tinubu JODER asked him to appreciate the weight of the illicit practices linked to the NNPC and the World Bank operations in Nigeria which further dips Nigeria’s image into the soak-away of global disrepute under the President’s watch.
The Minister for Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye had revealed that Nigerian World Bank officials take forty percent from all loans obtained by Nigeria. She also revealed that some members of the National Assembly do demand and receive bribes from loans collected on behalf of Nigerians while Minister(s) are entitled to 5% of the loan.
JODER alleged that the World bank officials are both “Nigerians and their European rogue cartels” whose main motive is to keep Nigeria as a satellite state that will never develop, hiding under the pretences of false assistance and development partnership.
On the scandal in the oil and gas sector, the Chairman, Dangote Refinery said some NNPC officials have set up refineries in Malta with a plot that would automatically stifle the prospect of oil and gas production and destroy indigenous growth of the industry at the homefront.
JORDER described the two revelations on the World Bank and the NNPC as the ‘biggest scam in African recent history,’ and demanded for the immediate suspension of NNPC officials whose names have been associated with the scam, the NNPC Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari and the Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed.
JORDER also requested President Tinubu to demand for the immediate suspension of the World Bank representative in Nigeria pending the outcome of the investigation.
It says that the revelations by the Minister and Dangote have brutally shaken the faith of Nigerians beyond measure raising the fear that redemption of the nation’s economy is impossible saying that President Tinubu needs to give hope to a despairing population that seems to have resigned to hopelessness and frustration.
These two issues of high level corruption, JORDER said, must never be swept under the carpet hence a probe is what is necessary for Nigeria to regain a bit of her totally lost reputation on the global map.
According to JORDER, the revelations shows clearly that World Bank loan is a big scam, a conscious plot to stunt Nigeria’s search for economic freedom.
“It shows the loans largely go into private pockets. Little wonder Nigerian Government Officials are desperate to seek loans all the time, which the National Assembly is always anxious to approve, but not for development but to largely oil the pockets of private individuals.”
JODER described the developments as ‘a human tragedy of unprecedented proportion.’