Diezani Alison-Madueke Says She Did Not Steal The Missing $20bn And No One Should Wrongly Accuse Her

Nigeria's Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has debunked allegations of stealing the missing $20bn. She says she was wrongly accused and has become the most abused minister today.

While disclosing this in a recent interview with Thisday Newspaper, she said...

"I must say it is very upsetting for me. Because I don’t stand out there shouting to Nigerians that I am not corrupt, they keep accusing me irrationally."

"When you are sitting here and trying to do all these work – everyday, you hear outside that $20 billion is missing under your watch – and even while you were trying to explain to Nigerians that such did not happen, you hear again about $18.5 billion."

"Then you see all kinds of stupid stories that start surfacing as if I am sitting on a barrel of money or a house full of money. When people come into my house every day and they can see what is in the house."

"So at a certain time, it looked as if despite all you think you have done for the betterment of the sector and country, it seemed like a group of people had decided that you should be the target no matter what you said or did." 

"Yet, I have a family, I have a husband, children, grandchildren, who everyday are on the internet seeing all sorts of nonsense written about me.

They look at me in prison garments, with handcuffs and all sorts of rubbish, and then Nigerians are saying I should be more open. You know there is a balance to everything in life." 

"Did we make mistakes? There would always be mistakes. But please do not say I stole $20 billion or $18.5 billion because I did not at any point in time. And if NNPC misappropriated funds or so, they have the entire explanation and more forensic audit should be done to determine how and why. But people should not make damaging accusations which have nothing to do with an individual. At no point did I steal from the Nigerian state."

"In fact, the first mantra I had from the time I came in was that I will never touch anything that has to do with the Federation Account and I never did and I will take that to my grave. 

So I will suggest that this issue of $20 billion or $18 billion be dropped because that is the major problem I had with my job. I was accused of unsavoury things, but which were actually accusations against NNPC and the audit was deployed to clarify all these things.

 So let us deal with the issues. I have never gone around accusing people of doing this or that, I have always stuck with the issues even when I was the most abused minister, I was professional, I stuck to the issues and responded only to the issues," she said.

Read more excerpts from the interview below...

On the N10 billion private jets lease, Why did you do that?

First of all, nobody can lease a jet for N10 billion over a period. You can buy three jets for N10 billion. So that was obviously a nonsensical argument and I did not lease any jet.

 The NNPC leased those jets to the best of my knowledge because at that point in time, they had no official planes. They leased the private jets for executive movement and operations in general, as had always been the case. 

But it was alleged that it was for your personal use?

No, it was not for my personal use, it was for executive movement, which has always been the case.

Is there any truth in the allegation that you have run away from the country or gone into exile?

Starting from the running away, I will say no. I didn’t run away from the country. I had said clearly to everybody a few months ago that I have been coming out regularly from early this year for treatments. 

In fact, everybody would remember that in March I had a major operation and I have been coming out for treatments periodically. It is a necessary treatment, so I have not run away at all. 

So those were my concerns and another concern is the kind of nastiness that has been thrown at my person, for what I can see as the sole reason why somebody got up and said $20 billion was missing or misappropriated; okay it is now $18.5 billion and all kinds of mud was thrown at you as if you picked up the $18.5 billion and walked out through the door. 

Essentially, these are my concerns. Please go and investigate it and make your report available, but please stop accusing people irrationally.

So what exactly is the nature of your illness; is it true that it is cancerous in nature?

That is a private matter that should not concern the public.

*Interview excerpts culled from Thisday*