According to The Punch, former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday said his administration probed the accounts of the Petroleum Trust Fund headed by the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) and found nothing unpleasant. Buhari headed the PTF, inaugurated in March 1995, under the regime of the late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha. The PTF, which was scrapped by Obasanjo on assumption of the Presidency in 1999, was established to manage the fund accruable from the increase in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise know as petrol, from N3.25 to N11.
The ex-President also set up a committee to investigate the accounts of the PTF following allegations of N25bn fraud in the agency. Obasanjo’s fresh revelation was made in Ogun State when Buhari and other national leaders of the APC visited the ex-President at his Hilltop residence in Abeokuta. He said:
“When you were going to become the manager of PTF. We talked about it and when you finished and I took over, we looked into it. I haven’t said this publicly, I would say it publicly now. When we looked into it, there was really nothing amiss except that that organisation went from road building to mosquito net-buying and all sorts of things”.
“And what the investigation discovered is a bit of inconsistency in prices and all that. In one area, mosquito net might have been given for N50; in another, N45. And I then remarked that this is fishy. We should look into it.
“And I called my brother and colleague (Buhari), I said see this and he said ‘look we are managing billions of Naira and I tried to make sure I see everything. But I will not say that what they have said about this is correct or not correct. But I can assure you, I tried to see everything.’
“I said okay Muhammadu, between me, you and God, was there any personal benefit for you? And you said ‘no.’ I said that is the end of the matter. Although there was that investigation, its report was not of any material importance.”
Obasanjo asked Buhari and other presidential candidates to address the nagging issues of insecurity, economy and deficit in infrastructure. He implored the presidential candidates to focus on issues rather than trivialities. He said:
“I hope people will face issues rather than trivialities. On occasions like this, issues are very important. And you have mentioned three areas which are demanding issues in Nigeria today.
“I will just beg all of you who are contesting to add one to it; you mentioned economy, you mentioned corruption, and you mentioned security. I will beg of you to add infrastructure. It’s very important. You may take it as part of economy but I will take infrastructure as special and give it special attention.”