Femi Aribisala, a public affairs analyst recently said on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily Show that N25.7 billion disappeared under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch as chairman of the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF.
During a recent appearance on the show, Dr. Femi Aribisala called to question President Buhari’s anti-corruption credentials and reminded his hosts that Buhari said that late military dictator, General Sani Abacha “never stole”, whereas the federal government is still repatriating loot stolen by Abacha and his family members and stashed abroad.
“I am not encouraged by his (Buhari’s) integrity. He was chairman of PTF and 25 billion disappeared according to the Haruna Adamu probe panel. Five hundred million disappeared in the bank under his watch,” Aribisala said.
You may watch the video below:
This is not the first time that the exact amount has been alleged to have been missing under Buhari. The “Haruna Adamu probe panel” that Aribisala mentioned was a panel that was set up by Obasanjo in 1999 and led by Dr. Haroun Adam as chairman, and Alhaji Abdu Abdurrahim, Mr Achana Gaius Yaro, Edward Eguavoen, Mr. T. Andrew Adegboro and Mr. Baba Goni Machina as members.
The panel was assigned to investigate the dealings of the PTF as well as figure out any discrepancies in the figures. The report of the panel showed that the sum of N25,758, 532,448 was mismanaged by the Afri-Project Consortium, APC, a company contracted by the PTF as management and project consultant when Buhari was the chairman of the PTF.
Afri-Project Consortium was founded by Nigeria’s minister of environment, Ms. Amina Mohammed. She was appointed minister by Buhari.
Some of the discrepancies showed that ambulances were bought at N13 million per unit instead of the actual price of N3 million per unit.
It is important to note that this report was never made public or investigated by ex-president Obasanjo and details of it only got out through a ThisDay exclusive report.
Buhari also denied the allegations from the report in January 2015 stating that the PDP was (then) trying to malign his character ahead of the (2015) elections.
“He (Buhari) said Abacha never stole but now, he is trying to recover Abacha’s money (loot)” referencing when Buhari had declared that Abacha never looted and his current investigation of the Abacha regime including the recovery of $320million from the Swiss government.
Nigeria is awaiting receipt, from Swiss Govt, of $320 million, identified as illegally taken from Nigeria under the Abacha administration
— Presidency Nigeria (@NGRPresident) April 27, 2016
