Oil bloc allocation: Reps threaten to arrest Emefiele, AGF

The House of Representatives has threatened to issue an arrest warrant on the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, and the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris.

The lawmakers issued the threat in connection to the sale of Oil Prospecting Licenses (OPLs) and Oil Mining Leases OMLs to some international oil companies.

Chairman of the House AdHoc Committee on OPLs/OMLs, Rep. Gideon Gwani (PDP-Kaduna) told journalists on Friday.

He said the committee has been mandated to investigate licenses issued by the government.

Gwani said the committee discovered that there were abnormalities in the process of the award of the oil blocs to companies.

Gwani also said that no production activity took place in some oil blocs awarded to the IOCs over 30 years ago.

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

He also said the committee is looking to get evidence that the signature bonuses for the marginal fields were paid for by the IOCs.

He said arrests will be made if the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, CBN and AGF Office failed to provide evidence of payment.

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.”

He said some oil blocs were also assigned to other companies without the approval of the president.

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