Reps, whistleblowers differ over investigation of $48m crude oil theft

The Ad-hoc Committee on Stolen 48 Million Barrels of Crude Oil and the George Uboh-led Whistleblowers Network on Tuesday differed over the mandate of the lower legislative chamber to investigate the matter.

The Ad-hoc Committee of the House, chaired by Mark Gbillah, had threatened to sue members of the George Uboh-led Whistleblowers Network over spurious allegations against the committee when they earlier protested in Abuja on Tuesday.

Whistleblowers Network in the early hours of Tuesday in Abuja protested against the committee at the gate of the National Assembly, insisting that the panel cannot investigate a matter that is pending in court.

The stolen crude oil was reportedly sold in China to the tune of $4.8 billion. The whistleblowers Network claimed that since the House of Representatives was not officially petitioned, it lacks the power to investigate.

The protest was led by Joseph Peter Umoh, who denounced the setting up of the ad-hoc committee by the House of Representatives.

They alleged that the House did not receive any petition from them to warrant such an investigation. Secondly, the committee did not include them in the list of witnesses invited for public hearing.

The committee, they insisted, should stay away from the matter since a court of competent jurisdiction is already hearing the case.

In a telephone conversation with journalists covering the Senate, the chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Mark Gbillah, said the George Uboh-led whistleblowers were nothing but rabble rousers in the matters at hand.

He dismissed all the allegations against his committee and the House of Representatives as spurious and threatened that legal action would be taken against their sponsors if they don’t desist from their show of shame.

He said: “In the first place, information on stolen 48 million barrels of crude oil was not given to me or the House of Representatives by the George Uboh-led Whistleblowers Network but by Jackson Odey in the faraway United States of America through a publication in 2020.

“Two, there is nothing subjudice in the mandates given the Ad-hoc Committee by resolution of the House which took effect three clear months before the so-called whistleblowers went to court.

“Three, the scope of investigation given to the Ad-hoc Committee transcended the stolen 48 million barrels of crude oil. It extended to general crude oil export from 2014 till date and investigation on whistleblowers’ findings in the oil sector.”