Oil Without Gate
“Enough damage had been done by the way the so-called “missing” N2.8 billion NNPC money was reported, and the reaction almost threw the nation into chaos … all this because the Nigerian press was eager to have its own somethingate.”
The Watergate complex is a hotel in Washington, D.C, in the United States. It was the venue of the bungled attempt by the Republican Party to infiltrate the headquarters of its rival, the Democratic Party, during the re-election efforts of former President Richard Nixon. The burglars were caught as they were jimmying the locks of the Democratic Party’s office. The resulting scandal was christened Watergate, for short. Since then, the gate has been taken out of the water and has been attached to any scandal regarded as national in scope. Koreagate was the name given to the scandal involving South Koreans who were tried in the United States for bribing American Government officials and members of the American Congress. Muldergate was given to the scandal in South Africa involving Cornelius Mulder’s efforts to bribe the press and other agencies in South Africa and other countries to bend information to the advantage of his country.
Nigeria hates to be left out of having its own Somethingate. When the news came that N2.8 billion belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was missing, someone quickly came up with Oilgate, meaning oil scandal, and the appellation quickly stuck. Thus, no one wanted his name connected with the story of the reported missing money. Any connection in any manner was regarded as so damaging, for people whose names where mentioned were seen as having a share of the money. Many Nigerians believed the story of the “missing” money, and those who argued, even in private conversation, that it was improbable that such a huge amount of money could be moved back and forth such ease, were as strange and possible accomplices in the who-dun-it.
Columnists and editors who refused to write screaming on the report when it came out were called apologists government, although which government was not specified blanket condemnations. It was the fashion at the time, and who took their work seriously and believed in allowing judiciary to prevail over catcalls, were criticised by their colleagues. Critics failed to realize that the statement credited to Senator Saraki that he knew of the whereabouts of the money substantiated in any way. Considering the gravity of the man the papers which carried the story as gospel truth at the tin guilty of something worse than recklessness. This was borned the clarification issued later by Senator Saraki that he was out of context at the time, that he didn’t find out through invest that the money was kept in private accounts of unnamed Nigerian in a British bank, and that, indeed, he based his statement anonymous letter he received.
What all this means was that in the first place, in as far as the reporting was based on the statement by Senator Saraki, actually existed that the money was missing. The testimony Midland Bank official at the Irikefe probe, if one believed the that the NNPC never kept up to one million naira in his bank the story. But enough damage had been done by the way the was reported, and the reaction it generated almost threw the into chaos and the temporary saving grace was the inquiry by the government. While one was not prejudging that the mission’s reporting many contain, it was enough to say all the tes heard during the commission’s public sitting didn’t support the published reports that the money was missing. The most inte witness at the commission was Professor Ayodele Awojobi University of Lagos. He used all the theories of logic and probably at his disposal to paint the NNPC as an organization gone bers nothing he told the tribunal beamed any light on the comm. Term of reference on the “missing” N2.8 billion, Tai Solarin column was later said by Peter Apesin, the editor of the Nigerian Tribune, as the basis for the paper’s story that a Chief A.O. State had benefited from the N2.8 billion, told commission had no basis for making the statement in his column. What boil down to its that nobody knows for sure, at least from the public testimonies before the tribunal, that N2.8 billion was missing from the coffers of the NNPC, Nigerians who paid attention to the story at the beginning and who, apparently, believed that a few Nigerians had stolen the nation’s money, seemed not to have followed the testimonies at the tribunal, because more than a few still think that someone was trying to cover up the truth.
It would be recalled that the whole story started when the draft of an audit report on the NNPC leaked to the press. The audit report, as was later made clear, did not say that the money was missing. The report’s quarrel was with the tardy manner in which it found the company’s book. The auditor’s question about how the amount N2.8 billion was handled in the books was meant for the management of the NNPC as a query, and until the final audit was prepared, one could not have said that the money was certainly missing. What has been known now was that such doubt the N2.8 billion exists in the country, and it looked as though only a miracle can clear the air.
One must wait for the Irikefe Commission’s report to know what to say about the whole matter, and whether its report, whatever it says, will clear the air on the magic figure of N2.8 billion. Bandits were reported to be going about using the N2.8 billion figure to justify their heinous crimes. And some people were in such a frame of mind not to believe any other thing, but that the money was indeed stolen for a period of time by some faceless Nigerians. And these include university professors and informed journalists. It didn’t matter to them that no basis existed, as far as was known, to say that some people have shared interests payable on N2.8 billion in any given period. And all this trouble because the Nigerian press was eager to have its own Somethingate.
©Sunday Concord, June 15, 1980
(Pp.73-75)
