Taiye Odewale Abuja
Fresh troubles loom for the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, as the Senate yesterday summoned him over alleged revocation of OML 13 without due process.
Also summoned along with the NNPC GMD was the Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), over alleged involvement in the OML 13 revocation, later awarded to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), a subsidiary of the NNPC, through executive fiat.
These were fallouts of petitions tabled against them before the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions by the National Coordinator, Global Peace and Sustainability Network, Chief Longers Anyanwu.
Longers Anyanwu had, in the petition, explained “that OML 13 is an Onshore oil block on the Eastern Niger Delta and has an acreage of 1,923Sq.m, as it hosts the Utapate South and Ibibio fields as well as a string of producing marginal fields”, including the frontier oil- operated Uquo.
He said: “The said OML 13 was sometime between February and Mach 2016, revoked and awarded to Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, a subsidiary abs the production arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC through executive fiat and without going through the statutory Licencing Bids Rounds.
“Curiously, this OML 13, which was awarded to the NPDC through an executive fiat, has been re-awarded to Sterling Oil Exploration and Energy Production Company (SEEPCO) without the offer going through an open tender of a licencing bids round by the relevant authorities.
“It is evident that this transaction is shrouded in mystery and under the table circumstances.
Hence, it is the intention of this petition to compel the Senate to use its position to cause a full scale inquiry into this ambiguous transaction,” he said.
