House Boat Renting : Goodluck Jonathan, Aliyu Gusau in 2.4 Billion Scandal

Former President Goodluck Jonathan, Aliyu Gusau, his former defence minister and the former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke and the immediate past Chief of Naval Staff, Usman Jubrin may soon have to answer questions on an alleged N2.4billion house boats rent scandal for the Nigerian Navy according to a Premiums Times exclusive report.

An ongoing investigation into the conducts of officials of the immediate past administration indicate that Mr. Jonathan instructed Mrs. Alison-Maduekwe to release funds from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to the defence chiefs to rent 13 House Boats to fight oil theft in the Niger Delta at an outrageous cost enough  to purchase the boats outrightly.

The boats were hired for N2.4 billion, an amount experts believe is more than enough for the country to buy the boats outright.

Authoritative security sources investigating alleged financial misdeeds of the Jonathan administration said their market surveys showed the boats rented for that princely sum could have been acquired for keeps at N100 million each, bringing the total cost to N1.3billion.

The funds to purportedly rent the boat was released at about the same time the federal government controversially postponed the presidential election from February 14 to March 28.

Although the request for the project was made in 2014, there was a sudden rush to make payment in mid-February this year.

It is not however clear whether a part of the money was used for electioneering-related expenses at a time “political cash” was ferried around the country by some contestants.

By February, after the postponement of the presidential election, there was a sudden rush by officials to get funds released for the procurement, investigators say.

On receiving the memo of the then finance minister that the existing allocations to the Navy be used to pay the rent, the former president ignored the advice.

Instead he simply asked Mrs. Alison-Madueke to pay the money to the Nigerian Navy as requested, drawing from his “Security Vote” in a secret NNPC account.

Although Nigeria paid N2.4billion for renting the 13 house boats for about a year, military sources disclosed that the average cost of renting the boats as indicated in military records is merely N15million a month.

“This means that not only did it make more sense to buy, even the cost of renting had been overwhelmingly inflated,” one source said.

Premium Times