Yesterday, the Senior Special Assistant to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, tweeted that the Vice President while he was acting president, gave approval for two contracts in NNPC after due diligence. NNPC had in its reply to Kachikwu's allegations, claimed it received presidential approval for the award of two contracts while President Buhari was away in the UK for medical attention. The contracts according to the statement received presidential approvals on July 10th and July 30th respectively.
Some Nigerians questioned the legality of President Buhari to grant approval for the contracts since he handed over power to Osinbajo when he travelled to the UK on May 7th. Osinbajo's media aide came on Twitter to claim that the contracts were approved after due diligence.
Akande tweet reads “In response to media inquiries on NNPC joint venture financing, VP Osinbajo, as Ag President approved recommendations after due diligence & adherence to established procedure. Action necessary to deal with a huge backlog of unpaid cash calls which Buhari adm. inherited and also to incentivize much needed fresh investments in the oil & gas sector.”
However, Osinbajo who was in Rivers state yesterday for the ground-breaking multi-billion Naira historic Bonny-Bodo road project, in Bonny, Rivers State, told newsmen that he only gave approvals for financing arrangements for the Joint Ventures between NNPC and IOCs, and not approvals for contracts.
“These were financing loans. Of course, you know what the Joint Ventures are, with the lOCs, like Chevron, Agip that had to be procured. In some cases, NNPC and their Joint Venture partners have to secure loans and they need the authorization to secure those loans while the President was away which the law provides. The law actually provides for those authorizations. So I did grant them. In fact, there were two of them but those are presidential approvals but they are specifically for the financing of the joint ventures for loans and not contracts' he said
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