Nairametrics| The House of Representatives may demand the prosecution and imprisonment of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, along with other top government officials, if they are unable to defend the sale of Oil Prospecting Licenses (OPLs) and Oil Mining Leases OMLs to some international oil companies (OICs).
This was the thrust of the Chairman of the House Ad-Hoc Committee on OPLs/OMLs, Rep. Gideon Gwani’s comments to newsmen on Friday. According to him, the committee discovered 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.
A particular sore point that the committee has issue with is the non-payment of the signature bonus despite the huge investment of the Federal Government. He then demanded that Emefiele and other officials provide evidence of payment of the signature bonuses on the sale of the oil blocs or risk being imprisoned.
“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” Gwani added.
