Nigerian business magnate Tony Elumelu has accused former President Muhammadu Buhari and his late chief of staff, Abba Kyari, of obstructing his company’s attempt to purchase an oilfield, despite having raised substantial funds for the deal.
Elumelu, chairman of Heirs Holdings Oil and Gas Limited revealed in an interview with the Financial Times that former President Muhammadu Buhari and his late chief of staff, Abba Kyari, obstructed his company’s attempt to purchase an oilfield. Elumelu claimed that despite raising billions of dollars to fund the deal, Buhari and Kyari declined the offer, stating that they could not allow an oilfield of such strategic importance to be owned by a private operator.
According to Elumelu, the rejection defied logic, considering that his company would have been acquiring the oilfield from a foreign entity. Heirs Holdings had approached the Buhari administration in 2017 with an offer of approximately $2.5 billion for the oilfield acquisition.
Three years ago, Elumelu acquired a 45% stake in an oilfield, but the operation was severely impacted by the criminal activities of oil thieves who frequently robbed his pipeline, causing the company to shut down production.
The frustration stemming from these issues led Elumelu to take to Twitter in 2022, expressing his dismay: “How can we be losing over 95% of oil production to thieves? Our security agencies should tell us who is stealing our oil. You bring vessels to our territorial waters, and we don’t know?”
