Transparency International Nigeria has accused President Bola Tinubu and former presidents Muhammadu Buhari and Olusegun Obasanjo of complicity in years of financial misconduct and unaccounted remittances by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
The allegation follows a recent Nigeria Development Update (NDU) report by the World Bank, which disclosed that NNPCL failed to remit N500 billion to the Federation Account between October and December 2024.
The report revealed that while the company generated N1.1 trillion in revenue from crude oil sales and other sources, only N600 billion was paid into the account.
Speaking to Daily Post on Monday, the Country Director of TI Nigeria, Auwal Rafsanjani, blamed successive presidents and the National Assembly for failing to ensure accountability in the operations of NNPCL.
“The need to carry out a comprehensive audit of NNPCL is necessary to ascertain the level of financial transactions under Mele Kyari and other leadership of NNPCL,” he said.
“If we want to have a comprehensive audit to know all the missing money lost from 1999 to date, it is only a thorough audit that will ascertain this. It is not only Mele Kyari, but it has to be comprehensive.
“All these happened under the president, who is the substantive petroleum minister. The president is responsible. Whether Buhari, Tinubu, or Obasanjo. That is why we have advocated for a substantive minister of petroleum.
“They must stop appointing themselves as ministers of petroleum. This showed that the National Assembly is not carrying out its oversight function. So it is a shame. The indictment should be to the president and the National Assembly for the mess in NNPCL.
“The subsidy is not the problem, but the corruption in the process is. The missing money must be recovered and used for the good of all Nigerians.”
The report has intensified calls from civil society organisations, including the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), for a thorough probe of the state-owned oil company.
Similarly, energy expert and managing partner of BBH Consulting, Barr. Ameh Madaki, described the lack of transparency in NNPCL’s operations as longstanding and deeply entrenched.
“The probe required in NNPCL under Mele Kyari goes far beyond the N500 billion referred to in the World Bank report under reference,” Madaki said.
“The opaque nature of the operations of the NNPCL over the years and the selective amnesia of the Nigerian public ensure that massive fraud is covered up by the organisation.
“For instance, what happened to the $3.3 billion borrowed by NNPCL to shore up the value of the naira on crude oil futures sales contracts?
“What was done with the money when the currency went into a disgraceful free fall? And this is not the first time NNPCL is not remitting funds to the federation account!
“Throughout the second term of President Buhari, NNPCL did not remit a dime to the Federation account because they said they had become a limited liability company like NLNG and would only remit profits after expenses and tax to the Federation account after the audit.
“This kept the states and local governments in dire straits financially under that government, and nothing happened.
“So why would anyone cry wolf over one month’s remittance to the Federation account? NNPCL has declared losses for several years under one frivolous guise or the other, but nobody has asked for a probe.
“Bayo Ojulari, the new GCEO of NNPCL, as a square peg in a square hole, must do the needful and purge the organisation of its opaqueness so that Nigerians can, for the first time, reap the benefits of having a National Oil and Gas Company.”
The calls for accountability have grown louder following Tinubu’s decision on 2 April 2025 to sack Kyari and other members of the NNPCL board amid concerns about their performance.
Although Kyari had announced the resumption of fuel production at Port Harcourt and Warri refineries in November and December 2024, the actual capacity and output of the refineries remain unclear. The issue has further fuelled public calls for an independent investigation into NNPCL’s finances and governance.
(SR, May 20, 2025).
