By DELE SOBOWALE 

“EFCC arrests ex-NNPCL CFO in $7.2bn refinery probe” – Report, June 23, 2025

“NNPCL Under Investigation : N210 trillion missing” – Report, June 21, 2025

“Nigeria’s public debt rises to N149.39tn in Q1 2025 – Report, June 28, 2025

Pause a moment and wrap your mind around the revelation that Nigeria might not have had to borrow one kobo – if only its national oil company had been managed by honest citizens from the Chairmen of the Board of Directors to the gatemen. When news reports about the probe of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts over N210 trillion, my first reaction was scepticism. Perhaps somebody had mistakenly added a few zeros; perhaps it was N2tn that was being questioned or even N20tn. For a nation no longer capable of being shocked and for a columnist with nearly 40 years, this was beyond belief. The NNPCL management was expected to dismiss it very quickly by opening its books of accounts to exonerate itself. Instead, the new managers of the NNPCL have quickly acquired the old bad habits of previous teams which treated public queries with contempt by at first failing to acknowledge the query sent to them by the Senate Committee.

My premonitions about NNPCL

“History does not repeat itself; man does” – Prof. Barbara Tuchmann.

Shortly after the new leaders of NNPCL were appointed, I published an article in April this year. Some of it is reproduced below for quick reference.

NNPCL might be in bigger trouble after Kyari

“New NNPCL boss targets 3m barrels per day, $60bn investment by 2030” – PUNCH, April 18, 2025.

Just when you think the Nigerian State cannot possibly appoint an official who will turn a minor disaster into a major calamity, you are soon convinced of your mistake. I thought it was the best decision the Tunubu government made when Mele Kyari, the former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, GMD-NNPCL, was sacked. I assumed then that no successor, if carefully selected, could be as bad or worse. Kyari, if he gets to read this article, has my sincere apologies. Things could be worse after Mele.”

Invariably, when new leaders start by uttering the same false statements as old ones, the impression is created that nothing substantial has changed. Mr Ojulari began by repeating the old fallacy about Nigeria producing 2 million barrels per day this year and reaching 3mbpd by 2027. Wishful thinking can never constitute a basis for future planning and projections. And NNPCL has been ruined by daydreams masquerading as guides to the future. June 2025 has just ended; and certainly, Nigeria has failed, once again, to produce 2mbpd of crude.

Over-promising and under-delivering has been an NNPCL characteristic from the beginning – especially under civilian governments. That is not about to stop any time soon; despite the appointment of new helmsmen at the top. Another anti-social habit, deeply ingrained in the company, is contempt for constituted authority. Because the Group Managing Directors are political appointments with direct reporting and access to the President, their total disdain for the Committees in the National Assembly has laid the groundwork for monumental fraud in what should be the nation’s bread basket – but it is actually an albatross around our necks. NNPCL’s vice grip of corruption is perhaps the most important cause of our under-development.

The black sheep among top 15

“Put all your eggs in one basket, but watch it carefully” – Warren Buffett, American billionaire.

Most Nigerians are still living with the illusion that our nation is the seventh largest oil producer. Facts always break the most stubborn illusions. Today, Nigeria is 15th in global oil production. That means our ability to control events has been diminished. The top oil producers are: USA, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Canada, Iraq, Iran, UAE, Brazil, Kuwait, Mexico, Venezuela, Norway, Qatar and finally Nigeria. Despite all the half-hearted attempts to reduce Nigeria’s dependence on crude oil, it is a fact that the economy is still hooked on crude. President Tinubu’s latest tax reform which seeks to alter the situation is still a work in progress. Poor implementation might thwart the efforts to increase tax collections from the rich and wealthy.

Because oil is still the mainstay of the economy, the NNPCL remains the single most important unit in our national lives. The NNPCL, meanwhile, has been a veritable den of robbers. That is one major reason Nigeria is the only oil producing country among the top 15 which is also classified as the poverty capital of the world. What separates the other nations from Nigeria was the way they treated the top positions in their national oil companies. The head of Aramco, in Saudi Arabia, is not a position assigned to someone to repay a political debt or to favour friends. The Chief Executive Officer is expected to be thoroughly professional and possess high integrity. The entire nation’s fate hangs on his shoulders. 

No CEO of any refinery in Russia, China or Iran would dare collect $2.3 billion to restart a refinery in order to produce fuel, lie about the work done, only for the unit to pack up a few months after and expect not to face the firing squad. By contrast, hundreds of billions of dollars have been collected in Nigeria for Turn Around Maintenance, TAM, which were never carried out – and the fraudulent managers received National Honours Awards. No single NNPCL Group Managing Director, GMD, has ever been arrested and prosecuted for TAMs not undertaken while funds have vanished.

If we now put the N210 trillion probe into context, it will be clearer to everybody why what is called a national debt of N143 trillion is actually a reflection of the grand larceny by managers of NNPCL and their collaborators. Even if only half was eventually proved to have been embezzled, it means that the national debt should be no more than N43 trillion and our debt repayment should be easily repayable. In fact, N100 trillion infusion into the nation’s Treasury should crash the exchange rate to less than N200/US$. The ramifications of getting as much as possible of our stolen funds recovered are unquantifiable at the moment. We are in this predicament because ALL our civilian Presidents have allowed NNPCL to operate above the law – for reasons known to them. Tinubu should open a new vista of honesty at NNPCL by fully supporting this probe.

Probe to third and fourth generation

Mr Ojulari, who expectedly is stonewalling just as his predecessors did, is merely doing a disservice to his own short term legacy. He was not in office when most of the atrocities being probed were committed. Granted, he is sounding like the rest of them – promising more than he can deliver. But, he is not being queried. Before him, the NNPCL and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, were the most queried among Federal Government institutions. And the figures published by the Auditors General of the Federation, AuGF tally with what the NASS is claiming now. We have been impoverished by NNPCL.