The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts is reported to have discovered a third jet that was chartered by the Petroleum Minister’s use.
Sources told a leading Nigerian publication, “From available information, there are three aircraft the minister charters for her trips within and outside the country. What they were doing was to alternate the planes.”
Information also reaching the press showed that many high profile Nigerians were mounting pressure on the Reps committee to tread softly on the probe into the expenditure of the minister on the three jets.
A source told Punch, “forces within Nigeria, especially outside the National Assembly, had been calling some of the committee members relentlessly.”
The source also said, “At a point on Tuesday, the pressure became unbearable. I think people are beginning to think that the House is embarking on a witch-hunt. But that is not the idea.
“We are doing our constitutional duty to expose corruption wherever it exists.
“If at the end of the day, the investigation proves that it was justifiable for a minister to spend billions of naira to charter aircraft, so be it.”
The Reps are said to have yet to take a decision n whether to summon Diezani, even as it appears over N 10 billion may have been spent by the minister on her private jet travel.
Nigerians are very upset that the same administration that wants them to bear the hardship of the remova of fuel subsidy can do little to nothing to rein in its feast on the public purse.