In the wake of President Buhari’s decision to probe the massive rot and corruption afflicting the oil sector, oil magnates have joined forces to eliminate the two men.
To threaten Aliko Dangote, Chairman, Dangote Group Plc with death; to issue similar threat to his friend, Femi Otedola, Chairman of Forte Oil, could be likened to foolhardiness of the habitual drunk, who after drinking himself to stupor by
the ocean shore, jumps into the Atlantic to piss on the Queen mermaid for splashing the sea at him.
But the gang of local oil merchants currently at war with billionaire businessmen, Dangote and Otedola, do not seem to know that; if they do, they do not give a hoot what manner of backlash they may incur or the grievous consequences of their action.
In the wake of President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to probe the rot and monumental corruption afflicting the
country’s oil sector, major marketers and magnates in the Nigerian oil industry comprising the sector’s oil merchants and nouveau riche have declared war against the duo of Dangote
and Otedola. And the reason is hardly
farfetched.
The men who have been fingered as the criminal masterminds of the controversial crude oil swap and Offshore Processing Agreement (OPA) went after the lives of Dangote and Otedola following a ThisDay newspaper report about the dirty deals in the oil sector.
In the report, Dangote and Otedola were identified as the whistle-blower who revealed the sleazy machinations of the
young oil magnates and the tragic consequences on the country.
No sooner did the report came out than the oil merchants joined forces as a group to sponsor bitter advertorials in newspapers to discredit the two billionaires and malign their reputation.
When they realised that wouldn’t cause enough damage to the two billionaires, they resorted to sending death threats to the duo via mobile phone text messages.
The Capital investigations revealed that
immediately after Dangote and Otedola started receiving the death threats on their phones, they alerted security agencies and forwarded the messages to them in order to assist them in
apprehending the culprits.
President Buhari’s decision to investigate the missing $20 billion oil subsidy fund and several other corrupt activities impeding the development and profitability of the nation’s oil industry predictably, generated massive hysteria
among the oil magnates responsible for the rot.
It would be recalled that, Diezani Alison-
Madueke, former petroleum minister, wrote a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), asking the agency to come probe her administration and the oil sector in
desperate bid to save her hide since she
became a subject of imminent probe and prosecution over the dirty deals executed on her watch as the nation’s minister of petroleum.
In the same vein, a former associate of Diezani agreed to refund $500 million of the $4.5 billion worth of subsidy fund traced to his coffers.
Several other oil magnates have been running helter-skelter to return looted funds and escape prosecution and possible jail term over their activities in the oil sector.
The Capital findings revealed that over $45 billion was looted from the country’s oil industry and the beneficiaries of the loot have since diverted their shares to fund their stake in the country’s power projects. While it will be too early to conclude that, the major culprits of the
crime will be prosecuted and jailed, their
mounting desperation and frantic bid to silence whistleblowers like Dangote and Otedola may be the chink in their widely despised and overpriced armour.