Whooping $17 Billion Undeclared Oil, Gas Missing

President Buhari has alleged hefty” sums have been stolen from the country’s oil industry.

House of Reps member Johnson Agbonayinma claimed last month that a whooping $17 billion in oil and liquefied natural gas was exported from Nigeria without being properly declared between 2011 and 2014.

According to the Sun, it was the latest allegation of multibillion-dollar graft directed at Nigeria’s oil industry. Nigeria has long been Africa’s top-oil producer, and oil proceeds make up 90% of the country’s exports and a large part of its budget.

The over dependence on oil revenue has dragged Nigeria’s economy into hard times when the price of crude on the global market started dropping in 2014. The situation worsened earlier this year when militants began sabotaging pipelines in the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta causing oil production drop to around 1.5 million barrels per-day as against over 2 million barrels per day, and the country officially entered a recession in the second quarter of this year.

However, Buhari has hithertho projected himself as a corruption fighter and claimed that the petroleum industry is ridden with gross theft.

The government believes international oil companies are at least partially responsible for the missing money. In a series of lawsuits filed earlier this year, Nigeria claimed several oil majors, including American firm Chevron and Italy’s Eni, didn’t declare $12.7 billion worth of crude and natural gas exports.