Nigerian senators have accused Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who wants to run for president in elections in April, of diverting $145 million of public funds toward private companies, a Senate report showed Tuesday.
The report backs up some of the accusations made against Abubakar by the anti-corruption squad in September, which have been used by President Olusegun Obasanjo to try to disqualify his estranged deputy from the race to succeed him.
A spokesman for the Action Congress, Abubakar’s party, denied the accusation and said no money was missing from the accounts of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund, which used to be under the vice president’s supervision.
Obasanjo and Abubakar have accused each other of using the fund as a slush fund in a vitriolic row that has raged since September and spawned a raft of lawsuits. The Senate report criticized both men but was more scathing about Abubakar.
The report is the latest twist in a convoluted political and legal battle between Obasanjo and Abubakar, and it is unlikely to clarify the situation.
The president is doing everything he can to exclude the vice president from April’s elections, and it remains unclear whether Abubakar will be able to participate. The electoral body has not made any clear pronouncements about the issue and several of the lawsuits are pending.
The Senate set up an ad hoc committee last year to look into the claims and counter-claims about the fund, which is designed to use a percentage of Nigeria’s oil revenues to invest in training and technology related to the petroleum sector.
The committee presented its report Tuesday, and the Senate is scheduled to examine it Wednesday.
Reuters obtained a copy of the final section of the report, containing conclusions and recommendations, but did not obtain a complete copy of the 54-page document.
“Abubakar … abused his office by aiding and abetting the diversion of public funds in the sums of $125 million and $20 million respectively, approved for specific projects, to deposits in banks, some of which were fraudulently converted as loans [to private companies],” the report said.
It recommended sanctioning Abubakar but did not specify how. As vice president, he has immunity from prosecution, but the presidency is trying to unseat him by arguing in the courts that he effectively resigned when he decamped to an opposition party.
The Senate committee said both Obasanjo and Abubakar had taken advantage of the fact that the fund’s budget does not have to be approved by the National Assembly to abuse the fund.
“Training for the oil and gas sector appears to have been relegated to the background as against unrelated projects for which there may have been [funding] elsewhere,” it said.
“The fortunes of the fund did not appear to have improved from when its supervision moved from the vice president to the president.”
The senators said Obasanjo and his Cabinet had “acted in disregard of the law establishing the PTDF.”