Former Nigeria minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has revealed that her mother, Kamene Okonjo was kidnaped in 2012 by oil subsidy ring after she refused to pay over $2.4bn fuel subsidy bogus claims and ordered an investigation.
Okonjo-Iweala, who is now the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO, revealed this in an interview with Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua.
According to her, the kidnappers’ demands were that she resigns as the Minister of Finance and leave the country.
She said trouble began when she her office discovered a sharp increase in fuel subsidy claims, and then began to scrutinize.
“So I went to the president and said, look, something is going on here. Could we audit the accounts? And he said, yes, go ahead.
“And we found about $2.4 billion worth of fraud. So we refused to pay,” she narrated.
It led to her mother’ss abduction, she said, noting that the five days she spent in captivity were the most painful periods of her life.
“I was told (by the kidnappers) that for her to be released, I should resign and leave the country.
“She was held in the middle of a forest, and one night she escaped. She’s still alive. She’s 96 now.”
“It was a terrible, terrible five-day ordeal. I think the worst in my life,” she said.
Okonjo-Iweala said initially she felt paralysed by fear and considered resigning. She added that that the experience left her with a sense of guilt that she still carries.
On her father’s reaction at the time, she said: “He said, ‘We don’t give in to blackmail’. And he said, ‘You’ve got to carry on. You’ve got to go to work’.”
Okonjo-Iweala served as Minister of Finance under President Goodluck Jonathan and her mother was kidnapped from their country home in Ogwashi-Uku, Delta State, in December 2012.
Nigeria lost billions of US dollars yearly to dubious subsidy claims until President Bola Tinubu suspended the scheme on assumption of office on May 29, 2023.