Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu has reportedly bribed members of the Niger Delta Avengers accused of blowing up pipeline installations across the country with a whopping sum of $10 million.
The allegation against the minister was made on Wednesday by Nigeria’s leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
According to the PDP in a statement via its official verified Twitter handle, Kachikwu released the money after a meeting at the Transcorp Hilton hotel, Abuja.
“The $10m bribe was given to representatives of Niger Delta Avengers after a meeting with @IbeKachikwu at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.
“Mr. @IbeKachikwu appealed to the representatives of Niger Delta Avengers to plead to the militants to stop vandalization of pipelines”, the PDP said in a set of tweets.
The PDP did not give details of the purpose of the alleged bribe.
Efforts to contact Kachikwu’s office for comments proved abortive at the time of this report. Nigeria has reportedly lost at least one million barrels of crude oil daily in the past one month and power sector output brought down to miserable level of less than 1,000MW owing to activities of the Niger Delta Avengers.
See screenshots of the PDP posts on Twitter:
