By Dipo Olowookere
Vice President, Mr Yemi Osinbajo, has explained that the approvals he granted to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) while he was the Acting President were for financing arrangements for the Joint Ventures between the corporation and IOCs, and not approvals for contracts.
He made this clarification on Thursday when he was approached by reporters after the ground-breaking multi-billion Naira historic Bonny-Bodo road project, in Bonny, Rivers State.
“These were financing loans. Of course, you know what the Joint Ventures are, with the lOCs, like Chevron, that had to procure.
“In some cases, NNPC and their Joint Venture partners have to secure loans and they need authorisation to secure those loans while the President was away.
“The law actually provides for those authorisations. So I did grant two of them and those were presidential approvals, but they are specifically for financing joint ventures and they are loans not contracts,” he told newsmen.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka