Ojulari’s NNPC claims “under attack by saboteurs” but urges its “staff and all patriotic Nigerians to stay focused, ignore the noise and not be discouraged”
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Neither Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bayo Ojulari nor any other official on Thursday honoured invitation to appear before Senators probing the missing N210 trillion in the company’s audited accounts between 2017 and 2023 under the watch of then-CEO Mele Kyari.
Kyari served nearly six years in the NNPC, spanning Muhammadu Buhari’s second term as President, from July 2019 to April 2025 – about two years into Bola Tinubu’s tenure in the Villa.
The Senate Public Accounts Committee gave 10 days to the NNPC to answer 11 specific queries over the vanished huge amount that can bail Nigeria out of nearly all its financial woes, but the NNPC turned up on Friday to allege an emerging coordinated sabotage campaign being waged against it by a faceless syndicate.
The alleged N210 trillion heist did not occur during the tenure of Ojulari, whom Tinubu hand-picked to take over from Kyari on 2 April 2025, after years of public agitation over alleged industrial-scale corruption in the NNPC.
It is another Nigerian mystery as to why Olulari’s NNPC would lose sleep over alleged looting not done during his time, to the point of alleging a campaign of sabotage instead of providing simple information on missing sums.
After he and his team dodged investigation summons on Thursday, claiming to be on a retreat – and requesting two months to explain the missing sum, which the Senate turned down with the threat of consequences for future non appearance – the NNPC fired back with a statement on Friday.
The statement claimed a faceless group is actively spreading lies and misinformation to discredit the company’s new leadership, which emerged after the clearing out of the old NNPC board members and other top shots along with Kyari on April 2.
The NNPC alleged that the group is spreading such misinformation to derail its ongoing transformation into a corruption-free, performance-driven energy company, according to reporting by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
“Their tactics include planting scandalous and fabricated reports, curated to distract leadership, mislead the public, and undermine the commitment of our dedicated workforce and reform-minded Nigerians,” the statement insisted.
“These are calculated efforts by those who feel threatened by reform, transparency, accountability, and change, a clear evidence of the lengths to which they will go to obstruct the transformation of Nigeria’s foremost energy institution.
“We expect a surge of defamatory content in the days and weeks ahead but NNPC Ltd. remains undeterred. The transformation is underway, and no amount of sabotage will stop it.”
In the statement, the NNPC failed to mention the N210 trillion that vanished from its vaults but urged its “dedicated staff, stakeholders, and all patriotic Nigerians to stay focused, ignore the noise and not be discouraged.”
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