Nigerian Senate President David Mark and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Dimeji Bankole were monthly receiving $30 million each from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) during the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua’s administration, a leaked confidential US diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks said.
The cable quoted Nigerian former Ambassador to the United Nations Maitama Sule as saying that Yar’Adua turned down approximately $60 million which had been offered to him by the NNPC as the President’s personal “share” of the nation’s monthly oil.
Sule, according to the cable, alleged that the NNPC, right from Obasanjo’s administration, allocated USD 1.00 per barrel of oil sold as a type of personal payment or “kickback” to the President.
“While Yar’Adua ordered his “share” to be deposited into the nation’s treasury, First Lady Tura’i Yar’adua pocketed her husband’s reported share, while Senate President David Mark and House Speaker Dimeji Bankole pocketed USD 0.50/barrel (e.g., $30 million)” the cable quoted Sule as revealing.
“In light of the possibility that Obasanjo could have stolen billions of dollars under this arrangement, Sule told PolOff that Yar’Adua told him that he may use this information, perhaps one day in the near future, to indict Obasanjo for corruption.
“The problem however, according to Sule, rested in the fact that Yar’Adua recognized that if he were to pursue Obasanjo, he may unwittingly subject his wife and close advisers to greater scrutiny, and risk his own political survival”, the cable added. When contacted by Daily Trust to comment on the allegation that he told the American intelligence cable in 2008 that former President Obasanjo had one dollar for every barrel of crude oil produced in Nigeria as kickback, Sule said he “could not remember having said so”.
He said he did not say so “since I know nothing about oil industry because I did not work there and have no business whatsoever with Nigeria’s oil sector”.
Sule, who now holds the traditional title of Danmasanin Kano, added that it is only those in government that could know government secret and how things are being run there.
Reacting to a leaked confidential US diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the NNPC, Dr Levi Ajuonuma told Daily Trust on phone that the allegation was nonsense and ridiculous.
“No Senate President or Speaker has ever received anything as kickback from the Corporation. It is just concocted and baseless”, he added.
Senate President David Mark yesterday denied reports credited to the Wikileaks that he and some other top government officials received the sum of $30m monthly as kickback from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) in 2007.
In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Kola Ologbondiyan, Mark said he could not believe that Alhaji Maitama Sule, an elder statesman, would have made the statements ascribed to him by the United States of America (USA) former Ambassador, Robin Sanders, as contained in the Wikileaks.
He described the allegation as “malicious, spurious, wicked and mere fabrication of a mind that is fertile in mischief.
“I have no knowledge of any kickback or proceed from the NNPC neither did I, at any time, in concert with the late President Umaru Musa YarAdua; his wife, Turai and the former House of Representatives Speaker, Hon. Dimeji Sabur Bankole, engaged in corrupt practices or receive kickback of $30 million.”
