Some members of the out-gone administration of President Goodluck Jonathan have said the dissolution of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) board by President Muhammad Buhari was out of order. Saying that according to the “Petroleum Act,” the board stood dissolved the moment former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, left office.

Two members of Jonathan’s administration who spoke on condition of anonymity to Sahara Reporters said that there was no reason for Buhari to send a letter to the board of the NNPC to dissolve.

“That act (President Buhari’s dissolution of the NNPC board) is null since there was no board in place after the former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, left office,” one of the sources said.

Alison-Madueke, who created the current NNPC board, officially lost her cabinet position on May 29, 2015 when Jonathan’s tenure ended.

The second source, who served on the disbanded board, claimed that Jonathan’s administration left $5 billion in the reserve for the incoming Buhari administration stating that the funds were yielded by dividends from Nigeria’s sales of liquefied natural gas.

It was reported that last weekend that Babs Omotowa, the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG), claimed that the company paid $1.6 billion in dividends to the Buhari government.

One of the two sources revealed that said the amount was $5 billion and not $1.6billion as earlier stated. He added that Buhari was either hiding the correct amount paid to his government in order to justify his claim of inheriting “an empty treasury” or that the NLNG was playing a game on Nigerians.