‘YOU’RE LATE TO THE PARTY ’ — TINUBU MOCKS ATIKU OVER COMMENT ON $3.3BN NNPCL LOAN
Bola Ahmed Tinubu,President and commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria mocked former Vice President and the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) Presidential Candidate in the last general election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar over comments that he should explain to Nigerians the whereabouts of the $3.3bn NNPC emergency loan deal.
The President who spoke through his Special Assistant on Social Media, Olusegun Dada said that the former vice-president, “fumbled the numbers” on the $3.3 billion emergency loan deal.
Atiku who stated this on Thursday in a post on his official X Page called on the Federal Government to shed more light on the transactions because Tinubu has continued to keep mum about the loan and the only information available to the public on the mega deal is coming only through unofficial sources from the NNPC.
He said, “In what appears to be a landmark economic decision of the Bola Tinubu-led administration, the Federal Government last year, precisely on August 16, 2023, through the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) secured a $3.3 billion emergency crude repayment loan, which according to the NNPC, was to help give support to the Naira and stabilize the Foreign Exchange market.
Although the NNPC had published details of the loan in a recent document, titled, ‘Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – Project Gazelle’, the politician questioned why Project Gazelle Funding Limited — a special purpose vehicle (SPV) driving the deal — was incorporated in the Bahamas, a region he described as “a haven for financial secrecy”.
Responding to Atiku in a post on X, Dada said Atiku is “late to the party, as usual”, stating that the presidency had explained the deal to Nigerians.
“Project Gazelle is such a straightforward deal that I do not expect Alhaji Atiku, who prides his whole political aspirations on being an economic reformer, to fumble the simple numbers behind it,” Dada posted.
“For record purposes and to save Alhaji from his self-imposed mystery, here are some explanations to his questions about the conditionalities of the loan in a simpler language.
“The facility is a forward sales agreement between NNPC limited and an SPV (the buyer) where a predetermined number of barrels of oil is sold in advance at an agreed price.
“The sales allow the seller (NNPCLtd in this case) to use the received payment to solve critical and urgent problems with forex scarcity as the problem in Nigeria’s case.
“A lower benchmark is usually adopted as a haven for the buyer (the SPV) as oil price tends to remain unstable most times.
“For repayment, an eventual increase in oil prices will result in the SPV returning all excesses to the seller (NNPC Ltd) while the risk which could lead to a rearrangement of the terms is a significant decrease in the agreed price (this case $65 per barrel).
“Oil has been averaging $70-75 per barrel since the deal was agreed, and if things stay the same way, Nigeria will be getting refunds of excess amounts from the SPV once the payment is concluded.”
