Senator Stella Oduah (Photo: Naij)

 

In an exlusive interview with Chinenye Ugonna of Naij.com, former minister of aviation-turned senator, Stella Oduah has finally spoken out revealing the truth behind the N255 million scandal which made national news few months ago. 

 

In this interview, the oil mogul also talked about her motivation, her passion and what keeps her going as a businesswoman and a politician. No doubt she is one of the most vibrant female senators in the upper assembly.

 

Read exerpts from the chat below;

 

The real truth behind the N225M BMW scandal:

 

We did not buy BMW to start with. BMW was a lease vehicle to the parastatal, NCAA. NCAA had to do so because their expatriates coming in at the peak of Boko Haram literally refused to come to Abuja unless they had a bullet-proof car and security vehicle with them. We went to several car dealers to lease it, It didn’t make sense to me that we were going to have short term leasing for this so the DG wrote a proposal that they do not have the money nut on their budget, they had operational security vehicle.

 

I don’t know the difference between bullet-proof and operational security. It means a vehicle that is secured so when you are going to any of those states, you can have some sense of security. He came to me as a minister, I approved it that he should go ahead and lease. They went to First Bank and they leased it to them and as we speak, except they have redone the purchase, the vehicles still don’t belong to the ministry, could not have been mine and not mine. If you go out, you will see my BMW, I didn’t need to have two BMW. 

 

Why would anyone do that in the same city? It doesn’t make sense. Truth was that for any minister who knows that your position was transitional, if you are lucky, you will be there for four years. The day you live, you won’t take the vehicle with you because its not yours; it belongs to the ministry.

 

For dignitaries and operations, people pay to use my car when dignitaries come into the country. I can’t stop them from doing what they have to do because the minister wants to go to the office. It takes me less than fifteen minutes from my house to the office, so what is the essence? These are the truths with the BMW.

 

BMW was not purchased and it went through all the processes it was suppose to. BMW was on the budget, it was not above the market price. Infact, if they had done their research, the ones Lagos and other states bought were far much more expensive what NCAA got. But NCAA did not buy; they did a lease purchase which means that if they will be able to overtime. What is the purpose of lease purchase? People who do not have sufficient fund to buy equipment, you sub-lease. When you do so, it means you are maximising the little resources that you have because you have need for the equipment. It gives you access to the equipment and pay with the little you have overtime.

 

When we look at it in a context, a minister on the average signs fifty to hundred documents in a day and it goes down to permanent secretary who is the chief administrator of the ministry and then goes to the various parastatals, then the directors and then the implementers. No minister can tell you exactly what happens on each documents that they signed. It is not possible. There is no way I can monitor each document because there are so many documents which is just a little part of what the minister does.

 

The BMW was conceptualized where the minister was the implementer, the secretary, permanent secretary, purchasing officer, and everything even the bank and seller. And then you wonder how can that be? And so I came to the conclusion that if you want to kill a cat, you can call a cat all kinds of names. That would give you justification for what you want to do.

 

And again because the truth was really that most of the things we did in terms of policy, processes, rehabilitation and new concepts did not go quite well with a lot of people who believed that aviation was their kingdom and so 'how dare she come in here, we must get rid of her to go back to status quo.'

 

Unfortunately, I left and they went back to status quo and the decay continued. But I pray that the decay would go away so that we can have aviation the way it should be. It should be catalyst to our economic growth, pivotal to the issues that we have, because it interfaces with literally every ministry and aspect of our lives.

 

How badly did the BMW scandal affect you?

 

The BMW episode was the worst period of my life because it went completely haywire with absolutely no truth attached to it. But I guess it was for a reason and I learnt quite a lot from it. When I came into aviation as a minister, I promised myself that I rather let my work speak for me.

 

I wasn’t going to spend my time talking to media, and advertising what we were doing but I rather dedicate that time to work so people can come and say “oh, how and why did they do this?” But I guess we are in a society where that is not the way to go because you have to advertise what you are doing. I still have no apologies for doing what I did.

 

Click here to read the full interview...