A non-governmental human rights and development organisation, Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre), has raised the alarm that
President Bola Tinubu’s move to grant multinational oil companies, Shell Nigeria Plc and Eni Oil mining licence will throw Nigeria into a colossal loss.
According to HEDA, President Tinubu is reported to be on the verge of granting Shell and Eni the oil mining licence as they have demanded for the offshore OPL 245 field.
The organisation recalled that former President Muhammadu Buhari had previously declined to issue the licence to the two multinational oil companies,
pending the outcome of corruption trials related to their acquisition of the field in 2011.
HEDA said that
“to ease the deal, in an exercise that effectively denies the conclusion of justice, Tinubu has already agreed to withdraw all OPL 245-related legal challenges against Shell and Eni.”
The organisation noted that most recently, a case against the two companies in the Nigerian Federal High Court collapsed after a lawyer for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) announced that the anti-graft agency had no evidence to support a prosecution.
“The lawyer is now under investigation by the EFCC, which did not instruct him to make such a statement.
“No-one is suggesting that the companies and others accused nobbled the lawyer. But it is hardly a good look.
“The signal to the outside world is that the Tinubu government is giving up on the fight against corruption, which, by any measure, is the real cause of Nigeria’s economic and
political woes,
” HEDA said a statement signed by Olanrewaju Suraju for HEDA Resource Centre, Antonio Tricarico for Italian ReCommon and Nicholas Hildyard for UK CornerHouse.