Our attention has been drawn to the refutal of our Lead story of Tuesday; ‘Jonathan confirms $10bn not remitted’, by the Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati, in a statement he issued Tuesday, that at no time during the well-attended reception did President Jonathan also confirm any “irregularities in the NNPC”, even as he described reports to this effect as “completely false and a total distortion of the president’s comments”.
But the management of LEADERSHIP Newspapers Group Ltd has stood by its story published on the front page of the edition. The president was said to have admitted that, while he was aware of some financial impropriety in the accounting system of the NNPC, only $10 billion was yet to be remitted by the corporation as claimed by the Ministry of Finance.
Continue reading after the cut....
The audio recordings of the president’s voice at the interactive session we relied on in writing the said report are not different from the one in the statement in which the special adviser to the president on media and publicity quoted the exact words of the president during his meeting with the Nigerian community in the Netherlands.
In the statement made available to LEADERSHIP, Abati quotes Jonathan verbatim: After asserting that allegation that various sums – $49.8 Billion, $12 Billion or $20 Billion – were missing are inconsistent and lacked credence, the president’s exact words were as follows: “As at the time, the finance ministry was saying they had not been able to reconcile only 10 billion dollars. There are issues in NNPC but we are on it.
“President Jonathan went on to say that, to reassure Nigerians of his administration’s continued commitment to openness, transparency and probity in the aftermath of the unsubstantiated allegations, the federal government had authorised a professional forensic audit of NNPC accounts to clear the air”, he added.
LEADERSHIP wondered what could be different from its report suggesting the president admitted he was aware of financial irregularities and the above quote Abati noted to be the president’s exact words.
We therefore stand by our story.
- Editor/Ledaership
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