According to a ThisDay interview, Minister of Petroleum, Diezani-Alison Madueke, denied ever withdrawing funds from the coffers of the NNPC during her tenure as minister.
She was reacting to accusations that she embezzled about $20bn revenue derived from sale of crude oil in the country.
“In fact, the first mantra I had from the time I came in was that I will never touch anything that has to do with the Federation Account and I never did and I will take that to my grave. So I will suggest that this issue of $20 billion or $18 billion be dropped because that is the major problem I had with my job.
“I was accused of unsavoury things, but which were actually accusations against NNPC and the audit was deployed to clarify all these things. So let us deal with the issues. I have never gone around accusing people of doing this or that, I have always stuck with the issues even when I was the most abused minister, I was professional, I stuck to the issues and responded only to the issues.”
“Did we make mistakes? There would always be mistakes. People would always make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes and there is no question about that. Have we learnt from our mistakes? Of course we have. But please do not say I stole $20 billion or $18.5 billion because I did not at any point in time.
“And if NNPC misappropriated funds or so, they have the entire explanation and more forensic audit should be done to determine how and why. But people should not make damaging accusations which have nothing to do with an individual. At no point did I steal from the Nigerian state.
