The Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), Zacch Adedeji, has dismissed online reports linking the NRS to an imaginary fraud related to the Frontier Exploration Fund, calling it sponsored fake news.

The report had alleged the transfer of $279 million from the Fund’s account to some unnamed accounts and claimed that Adedeji and the NRS were in the know of the ‘illegal’ movement of money.

According to the report, the alleged fraud had put Adedeji under pressure with stakeholders calling for forensic audit of the Fund’s account.

But in his reaction via telephone, Adedeji dismissed the said report as fake news based on the imagination of some persons determined to tarnish his reputation and the image of the NRS.

“That report is not true in any way. It is pure fake news sponsored by some jobless persons whose pastime is to throw mud at high performers in the President Tinubu government. I consider it to be a brand of cheap journalism lacking in ethics and professionalism but heavy with malicious intentions.

“To prove to you that it was sponsored, take a critical look at the storyline and language. They are the same language and style in all the reports, meaning that one person wrote it and distributed across gullible online platforms,” Adedeji said.

The NRS chairman said that the sponsors of the report exhibited lack of understanding on what the Frontier Fund was all about and how it is disbursed.

He explained that the Frontier Exploration Fund was established under Section 9 of the Petroleum Industry Act, 2021 and was meant to finance petroleum exploration activities in frontier basins where commercially viable hydrocarbon reserves are yet to be fully established,

The frontier basins include Bida, Benue Trough, Anambra, Chad, Sokoto and Dahomey Basins. The Fund is to used for expenses in geological mapping, seismic surveys, exploratory drilling, appraisal wells, basin studies and other exploration activities.

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