THE N2.8 BILLION ALLEGED MISSING OIL MONEY STORY

I have anticipated that in the absence of advance copies of the book about to be launched, the Press will be otherwise inquisitive about the above subject. I have therefore prepared a painstaking brief.
In my book, I devoted two chapters, Chapters 27 and 28, covering some 45 pages (more than 7% of the volume), with extensive extracts from the Report on the Findings and Conclusions of the Justice Irikefe Tribunal of Inquiry on the matter. Its transactions were contained in 13 volumes together with the volume on the Report to the Government.
The story which was triggered by an Auditor’s Management Report, (satisfactorily resolved), that was mischievously leaked to the press was first published by the Punch newspaper, which soon published an ‘’unprompted and unsolicited apology’’ on 27th 0f September, 1979 (see page 520).
I have extracted the following, in extenso, from the report of the Tribunal.

‘’In November 1979, the issue was raised by Senator Barkin Zuwo in words which revived the speculations that money might be missing......
Senator Saraki reported that he had received anonymous telephone calls and letters from people who claimed that the money was in fact missing and that it had been paid into some private account..... He later spoke briefly to a television interviewer, Miss Vera Ifodu, in exactly the same terms as he had spoken in the Senate. The video tape of the interview was played back at the Tribunal. From the summary reports by the news media and their commentaries on the unambiguous speeches made in the National Assembly and the television interviews ... the rumour was distorted out of proportion and a completely different twist was given to an otherwise clear and innocent situation. In reporting what Senator Saraki said,.... the introduction to the story by the Managing Director of the NTA had carried the fantasy many stages further, (Mr Augie NTA MD admitted to the Tribunal that) ... ‘’it is not the best way to deal with the matter as it was stated, a totally different story of what Senator Saraki actually said to Miss Ifodu.’’...
General evidence about the alleged N2.8billion which has been clearly demonstrated to have its origin in the fertile imaginations or the deliberate distortions of mischievous journalists nurtured by assembly men and blown into a monster by politicians and columnists with axes to grind ....(p526)
Imagination had run riot, and everyone, newspaper editors and columnists, students, unwary legislators, workers, university dons and in fact, the whole country was caught in the vicious rumour, and something that started as a mischievous report assumed monstrous proportions.
All those who shouted the loudest on pages of the newspapers and elsewhere denied of being possessed of any information and one of them, in particular, Mr Longe, (Deputy Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly) asserted on oath that his threat to reveal the name of the owner of the foreign account into which the account was paid, if the President failed to do so, was a matter of politics and that in politics anything goes and there were no holds barred. ....How many an innocent man has lost his life as a result of a hue and cry carelessly raised as a lark, by someone who immediately thereafter melts into the crowd and then into oblivion.....
While the possibilities of the loss of such a colossal sum should be cause for indignation, there were those who, in shouting for action against imagined culprits had ideas, other than the stability of the nation, in their minds. It was Dr Paul Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, who said that a small lie does not excite the human mind, but that a sufficiently big lie, if repeated often enough would soon put on the garb of truth. ... Prompt action by government in publishing details of the NNPC which existed then as they still are today would have quickly diffused the situation. The only antidote to falsehood is truth, and must be brought out without delay. ... (525)
It seems that this matter of the N2.8billion has turned into a storm in a tea cup and the greatest Hoax of all time. (P 20)
One of the issues frequently emphasized in the rumours that were peddled before the Tribunal was set up was the claim by some persons that the sum of N2.8billion was paid into a private account in England and later transferred to the Midland Bank in London. ....Mr Robert Hubbard, the Manager of the Midland Bank also testified that at no time was the sum of N2.8billion paid into the Midland Account of NNPC in London and that the cumulative lodgement in the current account did not exceed 200,000 pounds sterling. He stated that a deposit of 100million pounds sterling would have a disastrous effect on any bank because such a bank had to pay interest. A deposit of N2.8 billion would therefore have a serious impact on the money market.’’ (P525)
‘’Summary of Findings and Recommendations of the Irikefe Tribunal of Inquiry
Findings
1. All crude oil sold by the NNPC and the payments thereof are in all respects in accordance with the terms of their contracts.
2. No proceeds of any such sales were missing or not properly accounted for.
3. No person has been found guilty of any fraud or wrong doing with regard to the handling or accounting for the proceeds of sales of crude oil.
4. No proceeds of sales of crude was ever paid into NNPC’s account with Midland Bank International Division, London, the only foreign account it was permitted to to maintain outside Nigeria and th only one it maintains as far as the Tribunal could determine.
................... ‘’ (526)
‘’NNPC’s Management
The Tribunal is therefore of the view that if the suspension of the Chief Executive of NNPC and its Board members was a result of the allegations surrounding the loss of NNPC’s N2.8billion such suspension would not have been fair and just as there has been no case of fraud or wrong doings on their part.’’
My last word on the matter is that this is now a dead issue that has continued, however, to titillate the imagination of the media. An attempt to revive it in 1988 was check-mated by me when I caused the Tribune to place a rejoinder to a so-called re-discovery of the matter of the payment of the NNPC oil money into an account other than the NNPC’s. The chastened Editor had had to write the following Note:
‘’ It has been established no N2.8billion was missing. The unresolved issue that of lodging which has to be resolved. ‘’ (P559)
I then entered into some exchanges with General Obasanjo and Chief Allison Ayida which left me satisfied that the matter had been finally laid to rest.
As a matter of interest, I won a case of libel in respect of this subject that I brought against Tribune, ably represented by the late Chief Bola Ige. An appeal by the defendant has, however, been abandoned at the Court of Appeal.
Finally my conclusion on this question is as I have stated in the following passage of the book:
‘’.... all of these are the last unrehearsed words on the subject of the so-called N2.8billion ‘Oilgate’ affair by the three persons living or dead, anywhere in the world, who should be able to know anything (if there is anything to know) about it. They speak the truth. ‘Ex nihilo nihil fit’, (out of nothing can come’. Now that the last ounce of believability has been squeezed out of that ‘phantom of the press’, it must be high time to allow the soulless monster to rest in pieces’’ (See page 557)