President Bola Tinubu’s chief of staff, Femi Gbajamila, illegally cornered tens of billions of naira in oil and gas royalty from Nigeria’s thriving oil regulatory commission after citing a fake law for the president’s approval, documents seen by Peoples Gazette showed.
Weeks after Mr Tinubu took the oath of office in 2023, his chief of staff began canvassing for money, knocking on the doors of highly lucrative agencies like the Nigeria Revenue Service (formerly Federal Inland Revenue Service), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (the agency in charge of the nation’s maritime operations) and Nigeria Customs Service, sources acquainted with the matter told The Gazette.
The Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission was not left out of the financial push as Mr Gbajabiamila drafted a memo requesting that four per cent of the cost of collection (annual revenue generated from the NUPRC) be split into two parts: 2.5 per cent for its operations and routine capital expenditure, and 1.5 per cent for capital expenditure.
The language ringfencing the 1.5 per cent, equal to N54 billion, was vague, as Mr Gbajabiamila said it was for “upgrading of crude oil and gas metering and transparency systems”. What he meant by transparency systems for such a humongous amount was not immediately clear.
“Mr President has directed that the Budget Office and the Accountant General of the Federation implement the approval in paragraph 2.a. above and ring fence the 1.5 per cent which may only be utilised for upgrading crude oil and gas metering and transparency systems upon obtaining relevant approvals,” Mr Gbajabiamila stated in a memo dated July 4, 2023.
Mr Gbajabiamila justified his request by citing a section of the Petroleum Industry Act 2023 to support his directive.
“The authority to collect these fees is vested in statute—Section 24(2)(c) of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) (2023). However, the specific percentage collectable is subject to presidential approval,” Mr Gbajabiamila said in the July 2023 memo.
Checks by The Gazette revealed the section contains language that does not in any way correlate with the authorisation to claim tens of billions of naira from the nation’s coffers.
“The source of the commission Fund shall be as follows–( c) cost of collection by the commission,” stated PIA 2023 Section 24 (2c) that Mr Gbajabiamila cited in a letter to the Ministry of Finance and Office of the Accountant General of the Federation to lay claim to N54 billion.
When asked for comments, the presidency defended Mr Gbajabiamila, saying he only carried out the president’s instructions, which he claimed were within the ambit of the law.
The presidency avoided commenting on the falseness of the cited law, instead insisting that the N54 billion illegally received was with the president’s say-so and that there was no “smoking gun” on the matter.
“Gbajabiamila did not commandeer any money,” Bayo Onanuga told The Gazette on Monday. “The presidential order given to the NUPRC is within the right of the Mr President as president and C-in-C.”
Further checks by The Gazette showed that even the president lacked such powers to direct NUPRC’s revenue accrual and capital expenditure appropriation.
That responsibility was assigned to the National Assembly under Section 24(1) of the PIA 2023, stating, “The commission shall maintain a fund into which money accruing to the commission shall be paid, and all expenditures of the commission shall be subject to appropriation by the National Assembly.”
The president, according to the cited law, has no business with directing how the cost of collection is shared, let alone laying claim to its 1.5 per cent.
The cost of collection, which was N98 billion in 2022, increased significantly to N145 billion following Mr Tinubu’s unification of the official and black market exchange rates.
Whether Mr Tinubu’s action constitutes an overreach of his constitutional powers remains to be seen and can only be determined by a competent court.
Mr Gbajabiamila has been implicated in corruption scandals across borders, including in the U.S., where he was disbarred by the State Bar of Georgia after allegedly stealing money from a client.
For months, Mr Gbajabiamila ignored summonses from the State Bar to answer questions regarding the theft. He subsequently stopped paying his membership fee after his client reported him to the Bar.
His actions led to a five-year suspension from the Bar in 2015 and ultimately led to outright termination in 2020 after the Bar determined it could no longer condone Mr Gbajamila’s ethical lapses.
In 2022, Mr Gbajabiamila was accused of accepting $2 million in cash bribes (as the speaker of the House of Representatives) to secure passage of the new Petroleum Industry Bill, despite protests from host communities.
In his latest financial scandal, the president’s chief of staff is battling fraud allegations and fighting to survive a N400 million bribery scandal that has engulfed his political career.
Adeniyi Adeyemi, director-general of a controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), accused Mr Gbajabiamila of collecting N400 million through a proxy and demanding an additional N200 million to secure his appointment as director.
The allegation arose after Mr Gbajabiamila released a statement on June 11 denying that the PFIPC (which appeared on pages 50 and 51 of the appropriation budget) existed and that the president was unaware of Mr Adeyemi’s appointment.
Mr Adeyemi said Mr Gbajabiamila was stung by his refusal to give him 48 per cent commission of PFIPC’s N27.7 billion grant and hence, sought to discredit the council and humiliate his person.
“The major rationale behind the disagreement between myself and the chief of staff is because he allegedly requested 48 per cent of the take-off grant (N27,395,510,136) from the same agency, which he denies, to which I rejected after he collected a total sum of 400 million by proxy, with a remaining balance of 200 million to secure the said appointment,” Mr Adeyemi said in a statement last month.
Mr Adeyemi said it was impossible for an agency that did not officially exist to be issued such a grant at the president and chief of staff’s directive.
He said, “If the agency does not exist, yet found its way into the Nigerian national budget, what that means is that the entire 2026 appropriation budget is a fraud and should be discarded.”
The president has ordered that the allegations be thoroughly investigated and concluded within 30 days. He said persons found culpable in the corruption would be prosecuted.
culled: https://gazettengr.com/
