NNPC And Unremitted Billions Of Dollars

 By Jide Oyewusi

If there is a company all Nigerians must focus all their attention on and demand a transparent accountability from if Nigeria is ever going to move forward or make any meaningful progress, it is none other than the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.

This is because even before independence, Nigeria’s major foreign exchange earner has been oil and so with the establishment of the NNPC, the company on which the major tripod of nation’s resources stand was born. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) was established on April 1, 1977 and later transformed into a limited liability company in July 2022 following the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021.

Upon its founding, the primary functions placed within its shoulder includes managing Nigeria’s vast oil and gas resources for national development through exploration and production, refining and petrochemical, product transportation and marketing, gas development, integrated energy development, government representation, ensuring energy security, research and development. Since transiting to a limited liability company, the NNPC Ltd has operated as a commercial entity focused on profit-making and transparency without relying on government funding or direct control.

Most regrettably, however, it is in connection with these latter roles that the stewardship of the NNPC is hereby called to question. In the first place, to expose how far corruption has continued to deal devastating blows to Nigeria, estimates show that 60 years since the country’s independence, more than $550 billion has gone down the drain of corruption with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recovering at least $750 million in both foreign and local currencies.

Most of the fraud against the Nigerian state are mostly traceable to oil theft and fraud perpetrated by the NNPC management. As far back as 2016, there was a report that the NNPC failed to remit a whooping $16 billion to the federation account. After all, the hues and cries that followed the shocking headline, everything was later swept under the carpet.

Again, in September 11, 2025, the immediate past group chief executive officer (GCEO) of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, was quizzed by the EFCC over diversion of $7. 2 billion refinery fund. On the 6th of August, 2035, the same Kyari and his associates were accused of using his in-law’s company, MSM group, as a front to launder $2. 8 billion meant for the rehabilitation of Nigeria’s Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refineries.

Whenever all such negative news hit the major headlines, Nigerians only hear them with their ears and when everything later suddenly goes silent, nobody is always in any position to ask any questions.

As we speak, the Nigerian Senate is asking NNPC to account for the sum of #210 trillion it failed to remit to the federation account. Whoever thinks anything tangible would come out of the investigation must be living in a fool’s paradise.

From the foregoing therefore, it is evident that the NNPC has continued to display a very high level of irresponsibility in the discharge of its function to the Nigerian state. The losers are the Nigerian masses who continue to lack basic infrastructure that can make life livable. With the humongous funds disappearing from NNPC, it has remained impossible to build all Nigerian road to taste.

There is complaints about paucity of funds to invest massively in the health and education sectors in a manner that would make a huge difference. The government has also had to resort to obtaining loans from all across the world to fund the budget and capital projects. If NNPC has not behaved as enemy of the Nigerian state, there would have been more than enough funds to provide affordable housing for all categories of workers and the excruciating sufferings of tenants in the hands of shylock landlords would have long abated.

Nigeria is a country of so many ironies. While leaders continually appeal to the citizens for patience and understanding, there seems to be no proper method to ensure accountability from those saddled with management of large funds which normally should accrue to the country but which are regularly siphoned without any real consequence.

Large funds supposedly belonging to the Nigerian state are continually diverted into private pockets and taken outside the country for safe keeping while the masses who are supposed to benefit from the abundant deposits of several mineral resources in their land continue to wriggle in pains and grumbling to their graves.

*Jide Oyewusi, the coordinator of Ethics Watch International Nigeria, is a commentator on public issues