The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu is said to be embroiled in a cold war with the Petroleum Minister, Diezani Madueke over a N1.56 billion bill for one of the three private jet charters used by the minister.
The jet in question, a Challenger 850 was used over a period of 12 months without settlement of the €500,000 (N130 million) monthly bill.
The GMD is said to be reluctant to make the payment due to the transparency spotlight being beamed upon the usually opaque oil behemoth. This has drawn the ire of the Petroleum Minister who is said to be reluctant to participate in the probe by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives into the matter.
Sources with knowledge of the matter say Yakubu can still claim plausible deniability and escape judgment as much of the payments for the PJ charters preceded his appointment as GMD.
The Nation reports a top source to have said
“The chartered jet allegation has put the presidency under undue pressure on whether the Minister should face the probe or not. Although some forces believe that the presidency should live up to its avowed commitment to the fight against corruption, others feel the House should be checked following suspicion that it is using the investigation to undermine the presidency.
“This explains why some people in the presidency are backing Diezani to go to court to obtain injunction to restrain the House Committee on Public Accounts. There is a plan to hang on to legal technicalities to stall the probe.
“Despite plans to frustrate the probe, all is not well in Diezani’s office on how the leakage came about leading to threats to sack two Special Assistants to the Minister during the week. She was said to be uncomfortable with the roles of the SAs on her travel logs with the jet.
“There is so much anger everywhere from the Minister because she has never been under heat like in the past few weeks. During the week, the blame game continued culminating in a cold war between the Minister and some NNPC officials. It got to a stage when she was almost sacking the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Andrew Yakubu.
“A major source of the war borders on the alleged refusal of the NNPC to pay the outstanding N1.56billion debt on the Challenger 850 jet.
“About 500,000 Euros (aboutN130 million) was paid monthly to hire the jet. The company managing the lease of the aircraft is being owed for 12 months which amounted to about N1.56 billion. The NNPC management was said to be reluctant to pay the debt.
“It is also suspected that some NNPC officials might have contributed to the leakage of information on the chartered jet causing some friction between the Minister and the GMD.
“Also, the GMD was said to be unhappy at being sidelined in decision-making process by the Minister. If she had her way, the GMD would have gone by now.”