Efforts to prosecute the past Minister of Petroleum
Resources, Deizani Alison-Madueke and other petroleum workers may become a hard
nut to crack due to what President Mohammadu Buhari described as lack of evidence.
The President made
this known in London, during an exclusive interview with Peter Okwoche of the
BBC, after attending a conference on the ongoing Syrian crisis.
Okwoche in a series of tweet after the interview quoted the
President to have said, “To prosecute corruption successfully we need evidence.
That’s not easy especially in petroleum sector.”
Buhari had threatened to prosecute all those who dipped
their hand into the nation’s wealth for private use and among those brandished
and suspected to be prosecuted is the immediate past petroleum Minister.
Post-Nigeria gathered that despite heightened tension and
anxiety over her possible investigation, the Economic and Financial Crime
Commission, EFCC, has been unable to put up valid prove to justify all forms of
allegations against her.
Buhari unwilling to give up on his search for evidence has
unwittingly admitted that there was no form of evidence privy to his government
against Mrs. Madueke and as such vindicated her from diverse alleged corrupt
malpractices leveled against her by Nigerians.
On the report that she is seeking asylum in some foreign
countries, in order to avoid been probed, Mrs. Madueke has reiterated in many
fora that the consistent malicious and libelous attacks on her person was due
to the reforms she brought to the oil and gas sector which was not favorable to
some cabals in the country.
“Let me state it clearly for the records that Nigeria is my
country and am not going anywhere. I love my country and I do think that I have
done the best for my country.
“For everything that has a beginning there is an end and
that is not a surprise. What is the surprise is the sort of malevolence
bordering on personal malicious libel to my person during this period of time.
“I do believe that I have done the best for Nigeria in this
job and I have attained many firsts in the history of oil and gas, especially
in the reforms that we have done. In this period of time, I have stepped on
many big toes, particularly the feet of the cabal in the industry when we came
in.
“I have said severally that we will open up the industry to
all Nigerians and we have, but that is not to the pleasure of certain cabal.
And I have been continuously maligned because of this and we have taken
millions and in fact, billions of dollars out of the hands of multinationals
and their sub-contractors and put them in the hands of Nigerians through
Nigerian content.
“Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians have come into the oil
and gas industry because of our reforms.” She stated.
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