Vice president of Nigeria Professor Yemi Osinbajo has distanced itself from the alleged six hundred and forty billion naira contract which has almost led to a face-off between the Minister of State, Petroleum Resources Ibe Kachikwu and the group managing director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC Dr. Maikanti Kacalla Baru.
Professor Osinbajo explained specifically in a press release from the office of the vice president that the approvals he granted to the NNPC while he was Acting President were for financing arrangements for the Joint Ventures between the corporation and IOCs, and not approvals for contracts.
Speaking through his Senior Special Assistant on Media & Publicity Laolu Akande the vice president said “These were financing loans. Of course, you know what the Joint Ventures are, with the lOCs, like Chevron, that had to procure. In some cases, NNPC and their Joint Venture partners have to secure loans and they need authorization to secure those loans while the President was away. The law actually provides for those authorizations. So I did grant two of them and those were presidential approvals, but they are specifically for financing joint ventures and they are loans not contracts”.
The vice president further disclosed that In response to media inquiries on the NNPC Joint Venture financing arrangements, VP Osinbajo, as Acting President, approved the recommendations after due diligence and adherence to established procedures. This was, of course, necessary to deal with huge backlog of unpaid cash calls which the Buhari administration inherited, and to incentivize much needed fresh investments in the oil and gas sector.
