CBN governor Emerfiele, accountant-general face arrest over shady oil deals

The House of Representatives Ad-hoc committee on OPLs/OMLs has threatened to have Emefiele and Ahmed Idris arrested

- Chairman of the House Ad-hoc committee Gideon Gwani issued the threat on Friday, January 27 saying if explanations of oil licenses sale are not made, the officials would be arrested

News Agency of Nigeria reports that the House of Representatives has threatened to issue a warrant of arrest for the two government officials over the sale of Oil Prospecting Licenses (OPLs) and Oil Mining Leases OMLs to some international oil companies.

The threat was issued by chairman of the House Ad-hoc committee on OPLs/OMLs Honourable Gideon Gwani (PDP-Kaduna) while briefing newsmen on Friday, January 27 in Abuja.

Gwani said the committee came to this conclusion in the course of its investigation which revealed that there were many anomalies in the process of the award of the oil blocs to IOCs by the government.

“Our findings have shown that 1.4billion dollars may be lost by the Federal Government on the OPLs/OMLs deal,’ ’ he said.

Gwani said the arrest of the two officials would be carried out if the Petroleum Resources ministry, CBN and AGF Office failed to provide evidence of payment of the signature bonuses on the sale of the oil blocs.

He said: “It is also worth mentioning that in the course of the investigation, the committee discovered a lot of issues being investigated to arrive at a conclusion.

“Some of the discoveries include the award of oil blocs by persons other than those prescribed by the petroleum Act.

“Other issues are the guidelines and the processes of the award where oil blocs were awarded to persons or companies other than those that participated at the bid rounds.

“The other one is the award of marginal fields for life. ”