SCANDAL: Jonathan, Petroleum Minister's Cronies Set To "Buy" Nigeria's Oil Refineries

The New-York, United States-based news publisher SaharaReporters has conducted an investigation and found out that the controversial plan to sell Nigeria's four oil refineries has reached the next stage.

The same medium had previously revealed the plan to hand over the national assets to friends and associates of President Goodluck Jonathan and Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke. It has been so arranged that the Minister's friends would emerge as the preferred bidders.

"Preferred" Buyers

The "highly reliable" sources both in the Presidency and oil sector disclosed that a prominent member of thePeoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been designated to buy one of the two refineries in Port Harcourt.Benny Peters, the owner of Aiteo Energy, is one of the major beneficiaries from Nigeria's notoriously fraudulent fuel subsidy payments, a friend to Ms. Alison-Madueke and President Jonathan. 

The Warri refinery is to be sold to Igho Salome's Televaras, while the Kaduna refinery will go to Sahara Energy.

Televaras is owned Mr. Igho Salome, and has been under the spotlight because of its sudden rise to prominence. It recently secured the Afam Power Plant in a privatization deal, despite not having any previous experience in the power sector. A BPE source said the company was arbitrarily announced as the winner. The Afam Power Plc was among the 18 PHCN successor companies which were put up for sale. None of the bids received for Afam Power Plc was deemed qualified, but Televaras was curiously announced as the winning bidder.

Sahara Energy, owned by Tonye Vole, Tope Osinubi and Ade Odunsi, was indicted in a report by a Swiss non-governmental organization, the Berne Declaration. The report revealed how Nigerian oil marketing companies perpetrated widespread subsidy fraud running into several billions of dollars. Titled "Swiss Traders' Opaque Deals in Nigeria," the Berne Declaration also accused the NNPC of colluding with international oil traders to defraud Nigeria. The Swiss report revealed that Sahara Energy, Rahamaniyya Group, Aiteo Energy Resources Limited, Ontario Oil and Gas Limited, Tridax Energy, Mezcor Limited and MRS Group had established subsidiaries, also called letter-box companies, in Geneva, Switzerland, with no real business activities.
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