Missing Oil Money: Group To Stage Protest Demanding Alison-Madueke Sack

An organisation known as Gate Keepers Foundation said they would stage a protest to demand an immediate suspension of Diezani Alison-Madueke when she would arrive at the Secretariat of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna on Wednesday for the 165th OPEC meeting.

Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Ressources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, pictured in Vienna in 2012. She is accused of using public funds to pay for the leasing of private jets for herself and members of her family. Credit: AFP/Alexander Klein

Nigeria Minister of Petroleum Resources is also the OPEC's alternate president.
"The protest has become necessary as a result of the failure of Diezani to account for the $20bn the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) failed to remit to the Federation Account and the N10bn she allegedly squandered on private jets in just two years," the group said in a statement signed by Blessing Agbomhmre, its Executive Director.
According to Sahara Reporters, the group is calling Nigerian diaspora in Europe to "occupy the OPEC Secretariat" and "stay there until the Secretary-General of OPEC suspends/sacks" the minister.
In March, the House of Representatives mandated its public accounts committee to investigate Alison-Madueke for allegedly spending N10bn of public money to charter a private jet for herself and her family since 2011. The minister, however, insisted that an approval of President Goodluck Jonathan, her close ally, had to be obtained first.
In a parallel development, the Senate committee on finance concluded in its report on missing oil money that there was no evidence that the NNPC had unremitted $20bn. The committee chairman also said the Senate would not indict Alison-Madueke. But on July 4 it was reported that the minister and the NNPC had offered bribes to the senators to make them endorse the report.
It will also be recalled that the Senate started an investigation after the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, had alleged that the NNPC had failed to remit $20bn of oil revenue to the Federation Account.