Senate President, Bukola Saraki has issued a statement denying a report published on citizen reporter site, Sahara Reporters which alleges that former President Goodluck Jonathan bribed him to sabotage investigations into allegations of missing funds at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Speaking via a statement issued by his spokesperson, Bamikole Omisore, Saraki said some individuals were cooking up false allegations because they were against his emergence as Senate President.
The statement read: “Attention of the senate president’s media office has been drawn to a malicious fabrication aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the senate president.
“It is evident that Senator Saraki’ commitment to see that the missing funds are found and paid back into the federation account was never in doubt from day one. It would be recalled that Senator Saraki during this investigation had gone out of his way to collaborate with the IHS Information Analytics Expertise and MJHC Limited London two renowned international organisations with specialty on oil financials to do further forensic review on this matter also underscore the length at which he left no stone unturned to help the committee unravel the mystery surrounding the missing funds.
“Also, Senator Saraki never met with Jonathan on this report (committee met last on the 16th of February 2014). So the thought of Senator Saraki working to bring down the number or amount unremitted with Goodluck Jonathan is completely false.
“For the avoidance of doubt, there has been no meeting of any type between Senator Saraki and former president Jonathan since the Senator left PDP. So any suggestion that ex-president Jonathan sent Chagoury to Senator Saraki with gifts /money to seek support from him on the report is totally false. Both the Sarakis and Chagourys have been family friends for over 26years.
“The media office of the senate president hereby uses this opportunity to put it on record that the posts are completely false with no iota of truth whatsoever.”
