INSTANT NEWS

Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has urged Finance Minister Olawale Edun to compel the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to remit $34.2 billion to the federation account. This substantial sum represents money received on behalf of the government from Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) between the years 2004 and 2021.

In a letter dated October 25, 2023, addressed to the minister, Falana further warned that he would file a lawsuit at the Federal High Court for the immediate recovery of the funds from NNPCL if it declines to make the necessary remittance.

Falana highlighted that on April 27, 2019, the Senate committee on public accounts held a public hearing on revenue generation for the 2021-2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP). During this hearing, NLNG's General Manager for External Relations and Sustainable Development, Eyono Fatai-Williams, revealed that the company paid dividends of over $18 billion to Nigeria through NNPCL from 1999 to 2019.

Furthermore, Fatai-Williams disclosed that NLNG had paid $9 billion in taxes to the Federal Government from 2011 to the present, and an additional $15 billion had been remitted for gas to NNPCL since the company's inception. Following this revelation, the Senate committee asked the suspended Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, to confirm whether the sum of $33 billion was indeed remitted to NNPCL.

According to Falana, Idris revealed that the funds paid by NLNG were not remitted to the federation account but were instead held by NNPCL. In light of this, the Public Accounts Committee directed the Accountant-General to ascertain the exact amount that was remitted to the federation account, whether any deductions were made by NNPCL, the amount deducted, who authorized the deductions, and the exchange rates applied for the remitted amounts over the years under review.