A cook who served Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, a Managing Director at the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in Abuja, has absconded with cash and pieces of jewelry worth $6million, a source told SaharaReporters on Wednesday. It was gathered that the man, identified as Gabel Segbedji, a national of Benin Republic, took off with the loot in a Toyota Camry car which also belonged to her boss, last Wednesday. Although reportedly devastated by the development, Mrs. Nnamdi-Ogbue did not report the burglary to the police, in the hope of avoiding further attention, as she is already under investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Mrs. Nnamdi Ogbue was the Managing Director of the cash-spinning Petroleum Products and Marketing Company (PPMC) before she was moved to Products Retail by then GMD of NNPC, Ibe Kachikwu, in 2015.
Segbedji is said to have been recommended for employment to Mrs. Nnamdi-Ogbue by a close friend of hers, Toke Benson. Â Our source said the NNPC chief obtained the mountain of cash from kickbacks given by oil marketers
The theft of the stash is likely to affect plans for the wedding of her daughter scheduled for later this month in London.
Just recently, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) beamed its searchlight on the administration of the former Managing Director of the Petroleum Products Pricing and Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) with surprising revelations.
The EFCC reportedly discovered that Ogbue-Nnamdi connived with shady oil magnates and cabals to perpetrate a fuel subsidy scam. Consequently, the anti-graft agency arrested the former PPMC boss for further interrogation about her part in the alleged scam.
Ogbue-Nnamdi was until the recent reforms in the oil industry, the MD of the PPMC where it was alleged that she illicitly enriched herself and amassed stupendous wealth from sales of IPOs to shady oil cabals. She was also accused of accepting kickbacks through proxies and other underhand dealings that accentuated the fuel scarcity months ago.
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A highly placed source in the EFCC revealed that the commission recently launched an inquiry to detect the sources of acquisition of choice properties in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The agency allegedly focused its searchlight on Ogbue-Nnamdi following a tip-off on her acquisitions particularly a house at Maitama valued at N1.2 billion.
The edifice was allegedly built and furnished within two months of her resumption as PPMC boss. The property which is located off Number 4, Amazon Street, Maitama allegedly confounded the EFCC leadership due to its grandiosity and unabashed opulence.
About six months into her tenure as PPMC’s MD, Ogbue-Nnamdi, a lawyer, started living large. The civil servant who used to be a quiet woman metamorphosed into an instant superstar in the oil sector. Top marketers became her buddies and she allegedly masterminded and participated in a lot of deals with some popular petroleum marketers including a very controversial oil magnate.
When she was later removed as PPMC boss and reassigned to a less lucrative ministry, she wept and wailed like a banshee. She made frantic attempts to influence her re-appointment as PPMC boss but all her efforts amounted to nothing.
